Sweeping and garage

I conducted some more yardwork for my grandparents today: I swept outside the front of the house and tidied the inside of the garage. Most of my work took place inside the garage, for while I was sweeping outdoors it started to rain - massively. I swept outside the back the other day and now it almost looks (again) as though I didn't do anything at all.

As for the garage, I'm happy with my work in there - it's the tidiest I've ever seen it! A job well done, indeed.

Tidying a shed

I spent an hour or so this afternoon tidying the shed in my grandparents' back yard. It was a worthwhile task, for the shed needed a sweeping and a bit of a re-arrangement; the interior now looks more organised as a result of my efforts.

The only downside is that I am coughing a bit more as a result of the dust combined with the remnants of whatever was affecting me yesterday but that's a minor concern; it'll pass in a day or two.

The near-cloudless sky

I posted this to Facebook earlier tonight:

"Today's near-cloudless sky has been astoundingly beautiful. Thanks to all this time I've spent outside performing yard work recently, I'm starting to look quite golden; no spray-on tans are necessary for me!"

Weather-wise, today has honestly been lovely. It's been our hottest day of the year so far but there has been a light breeze present throughout much of the day to help counter the heat. I spent much of today outside working in the yard.

And yes, I don't need any silly spray-on tans or tanning beds: I tan just fine in the Sun.

The bird house

In the last month we have been tidying up the back garden: this has consisted of picking weeds, trimming overgrown trees/bushes, and removing dead plants. During the cutting back of the trees overgrowing the fence, we found this bird house buried within the branches and hooked onto the fence itself:

You can imagine our surprise to find both a bird house, and the words "U.S. Mail" written on it! I wonder how the bird house came to be here, and I do find it being in our yard interesting considering our background (in regards to the "U.S. Mail part" of the bird house).

Cutting the grass

I performed the first grass-cutting of our yards for the year today. It was not a difficult job as we have only a small lawn at the front and a somewhat bigger (but still small) lawn at the back; in addition, both lots of grass are flat. Factoring in getting the equipment out of the garage, setting everything up, and doing the actual cutting, I would say that it was a half-hour job at most.

This contrasts to two years ago when it could take up to two days to cut the grass. With our house in Oregon having two/three acres of land in front of it, the front yard being located on a slope, and that slope having plenty of dips in various parts, it was difficult work to cut its grass. Even when we used a tractor rather than a lawnmower it took several hours to get the job done, and with a tractor we could not use it on the deeply sloped parts to avoid tipping the machine over.

As exhausting as it was, cutting the grass at our Oregon home was still fun and I do miss it. It would be nice to cut it again.