We don’t have much of the supplies at the house yet in order to get moving, but I decided to grab the boys and do some work in the yard since Derek is currently indisposed. We stopped at the IFA that is about a block from the house, grabbed a couple new spade shovels, gloves and a hand tool. We dug up the awful noxious succulents, myrtle spurge, along with the sweet pea. We then decided to dig up the horrible railroad tie border.
After pulling out the giant pile of sweet pea I found the old downspout 90 that fell off. I was cleaning it out with my, thankfully gloved hand, when I spotted a mommy black widow and her giant egg sack. We found her a quiet spot off to the side of the house, nowhere near a window (I’m not sure that really matters). It’s not that i felt i needed to spare her life more than it’s about not having to hear that “pop” when you squash one. It gives me the chills just thinking about it.
We will just have to learn how to cohabitate, because I’m not going to kill her and hopefully she feels the same. We are invading her space after all.
We posted a short little video about cleaning up the front yard and finding our friend.
After finishing the front yard we started clearing out the space behind the garage. I bet I removed over 100 fiberglass tent poles. Who collects tent poles? Seriously. Anyway, we were able to get it spiffied up and ready for stacking the wood that we will need in our two wood stoves during the winters. We stacked a little of the wood we recently received from our lovely friends’ home, but there is much more to get to fill that space including the wood from my grandparents home. I can’t let a single thing my grandfather did go to waste. He will keep us warm for at least one winter.
Derek was able to come by later in the day after working his other two jobs. He finished pulling up oak flooring upstairs and finished the tedious job of removing all the nails as well. He will be saving the oak to line the walls of his music studio.
All in all it was a very successful day. We will be getting to the real renovation next week after Derek is done working on his clients’ homes.