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Outside chores | Pad Patter 10.1.17

IntenseMagic

IntenseMagic

Some grannies cuss a lot. I'm some grannies.
Pollywog
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Feb 28, 2012
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I can't believe that it's October already!! I want to love fall, I really do. The temperatures right now are perfect and the colors are beautiful, but when I look out the window all I see are the leaves starting to pile up! I'm an outdoors girl and I love to work in the yard, especially when it's not too hot or not too cold, BUT I absolutely hate doing leaves! We have right at a half acre of land and the whole thing can get mid-calf deep if we don't keep up with them. If I had my way (and the money), we'd cut down every tree even close to our yard :giggle.

As for mowing the lawn, trimming trees, weeding, building, cleaning, and all the rest of the outdoor chores...I love those! I must get that from my mom. She loves to mow and still does her own lawn at 79 years old. It's not uncommon for me to be out working in the yard and DH to be cleaning inside the house. He hates yard work and would much rather pay someone to come and do things. I only let him do that when I just can't get to it because of work and sports.

So, I'm curious. Who does the outside chores at your house? Is there one that you dislike more than the others?
 
Oh my goodness-- I despise yard work! I think it is because I cannot grow things to save my life and it drives me crazy. I am just not knowledgeable about the best time to prune roses, how to keep weeds out of my bushes, how to split irises, what to feed azaleas to keep them happy... perhaps if I had more knowledge and felt more successful in growing things I would enjoy it better.
 
No yard work for us as we live in an apartment and only have to take care of a balcony. And that depends totally on how much I am putting out there that needs care (not much usually).
That being said I love going into our back yard (which is taken care of by the property management) to hang up laundry to dry in the sun. That's about all my "yard work" and I am enjoying that immensely. Nothing nice than being able to let nature do things for me.

We once had a garden allotment and I hated garden work. The constant weeding, ugh! We got rid of it asap, :-)
 
The hubby or my son does most of the outdoor stuff. I have a little garden so I take care of that. We all do weeding to keep up with it. Lucky for us ... most of the leaves that fall end up blowing right out of our yard and into the woods. We live on top of a big hill and the wind can be quite something at times. Most of the leaves don't stand a chance of hanging out on our lawn for long ...
 
I love the outdoors but I have never been motivated enough to learn how to garden. Last time I tried was 2006. It was a little 4 foot square garden (followed the philosophy of "square foot gardening") and I got a handful of little carrots from it. After we removed it, a few trees grew in the spot from acorns dropped by squirrels, presumably.

We live on ⅓ of an acre, on a hill. When we first moved in, in 2000, we were looking forward to country living, having just moved out of an apartment in Los Angeles. But a few years ago my husband grew to dislike yard work (and I've always been happy to leave it up to him) and we are looking forward to living on much smaller property in a city someday. Somewhere where we can walk to a lot of things like a park, library, stores, etc. Like we did when we lived in that apartment in the 90's!

I haven't even been successful with house plants. But I might try again someday.

As for raking leaves, we do it pretty much just once a year, sort of together as a family.
 
GlazeFamily3 said:
Oh my goodness-- I despise yard work! I think it is because I cannot grow things to save my life and it drives me crazy. I am just not knowledgeable about the best time to prune roses, how to keep weeds out of my bushes, how to split irises, what to feed azaleas to keep them happy... perhaps if I had more knowledge and felt more successful in growing things I would enjoy it better.
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I can't say I'm very knowledgeable, and I can't grow a house plant to save my life, but I do ok with the outside stuff just kind of winging it lol. I have 3 azaleas and they are some of my favorites. I just let them do their thing haha. If I actually had knowledge I might have something impressive!

Rikki said:
No yard work for us as we live in an apartment and only have to take care of a balcony. And that depends totally on how much I am putting out there that needs care (not much usually).
That being said I love going into our back yard (which is taken care of by the property management) to hang up laundry to dry in the sun. That's about all my "yard work" and I am enjoying that immensely. Nothing nice than being able to let nature do things for me.

We once had a garden allotment and I hated garden work. The constant weeding, ugh! We got rid of it asap, :-)
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As I get older, my dream is to live in a place where someone takes care of the chores and I can have just a small space to take care of and spend time in!

jenn mccabe said:
The hubby or my son does most of the outdoor stuff. I have a little garden so I take care of that. We all do weeding to keep up with it. Lucky for us ... most of the leaves that fall end up blowing right out of our yard and into the woods. We live on top of a big hill and the wind can be quite something at times. Most of the leaves don't stand a chance of hanging out on our lawn for long ...
Click to expand...

We live at the bottom of a hill and all the leaves seem to blow on us. We do have woods behind the house, so we usually mow or blow the leaves in that direction and don't have to actually bag them. We pile the ones in front, put them on a tarp, and drag them to the woods.

michelepixels said:
I love the outdoors but I have never been motivated enough to learn how to garden. Last time I tried was 2006. It was a little 4 foot square garden (followed the philosophy of "square foot gardening") and I got a handful of little carrots from it. After we removed it, a few trees grew in the spot from acorns dropped by squirrels, presumably.

We live on ⅓ of an acre, on a hill. When we first moved in, in 2000, we were looking forward to country living, having just moved out of an apartment in Los Angeles. But a few years ago my husband grew to dislike yard work (and I've always been happy to leave it up to him) and we are looking forward to living on much smaller property in a city someday. Somewhere where we can walk to a lot of things like a park, library, stores, etc. Like we did when we lived in that apartment in the 90's!

I haven't even been successful with house plants. But I might try again someday.

As for raking leaves, we do it pretty much just once a year, sort of together as a family.
Click to expand...

I have never had much luck with veggies or anything edible. I did have a few small grape tomato plants this year and I just called them my snack plants because I'd go out and eat them off the vine as soon as they were ripe!
And yes, I have loved my house and our lot for many years, but I am getting to the point where I'd really like to live in something where the majority of the maintenance is done by someone else and I can just enjoy outdoor time without so many chores.
 
I don't mind mowing. But hate leaves, and soooooo thankful that we don't have any trees in our yard or close!!!! lol
 
I love mowing but with having 3 acres and mowing about 2 acres it takes both my husband and I to mow. He does all the push and trimming while I do the riding.

As to the leaves that was a major problem until about 2 years ago when we decided that 4 trees (that caused most of the leaves) had to go. They needed to go mainly because of leaning towards our house. After cutting them down we were told the biggest was rotten on the inside so we are so glad we spent the money to get them out. We still have quite a few leaves (the advantage or disadvantage) of living in the country and beside the woods. Hubby and I both try and keep up with the leaves.
 
My allergies make me look like runny nosed toddler after doing yard work! I'm allergic to all.the.things. We have some kind of tree that drops HUGE pods all over the front yard, but not too many leaves.

I'm in the category where I can't even keep silk plants alive, so I don't even attempt to grow things anymore LOL!
 
LoveItScrapIt said:
I don't mind mowing. But hate leaves, and soooooo thankful that we don't have any trees in our yard or close!!!! lol
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I'd like to get rid of every one that is even remotely close to my house!!

rdjrneace said:
I love mowing but with having 3 acres and mowing about 2 acres it takes both my husband and I to mow. He does all the push and trimming while I do the riding.

As to the leaves that was a major problem until about 2 years ago when we decided that 4 trees (that caused most of the leaves) had to go. They needed to go mainly because of leaning towards our house. After cutting them down we were told the biggest was rotten on the inside so we are so glad we spent the money to get them out. We still have quite a few leaves (the advantage or disadvantage) of living in the country and beside the woods. Hubby and I both try and keep up with the leaves.
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We really need to have a few cut down. We have woods behind our house and while it's peaceful, it's a pain in the fall for sure.

bbymks5 said:
My allergies make me look like runny nosed toddler after doing yard work! I'm allergic to all.the.things. We have some kind of tree that drops HUGE pods all over the front yard, but not too many leaves.

I'm in the category where I can't even keep silk plants alive, so I don't even attempt to grow things anymore LOL!
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Haha I am terrible with anything that has to live in my house. And silk plants don't do much better. Sometimes I wonder how I keep the people alive.
 
The only reason I've managed to keep the kids alive is b/c they can communicate one way or another and they don't stop until they've been fed LOL!
 
My hubby does the mowing and weed eating. Although I've told him I would do it...he literally wears cleats to keep from sliding down our hills.

Since we live on 3 acres & just moved in a couple of years ago (new construction) there's a ton of yard work still to do. So, on the weekends we'll go pick up sticks, trim new areas, pick up rocks, etc... In some ways I wish we could just hire a crew to get it in order but in some ways I like the manual labor & having our family work at it together.

We still have a lot of things we want to do...a lot of landscaping...but we really don't know where to start...and we just keep putting it off. We are just trying to get it cleared and growing grass at this point.
 
bbymks5 said:
The only reason I've managed to keep the kids alive is b/c they can communicate one way or another and they don't stop until they've been fed LOL!
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It's a wonderful day when they can make meals for themselves! Some days I am grateful we all made it to that point haha!

Scrapping with Liz said:
My hubby does the mowing and weed eating. Although I've told him I would do it...he literally wears cleats to keep from sliding down our hills.

Since we live on 3 acres & just moved in a couple of years ago (new construction) there's a ton of yard work still to do. So, on the weekends we'll go pick up sticks, trim new areas, pick up rocks, etc... In some ways I wish we could just hire a crew to get it in order but in some ways I like the manual labor & having our family work at it together.

We still have a lot of things we want to do...a lot of landscaping...but we really don't know where to start...and we just keep putting it off. We are just trying to get it cleared and growing grass at this point.
Click to expand...

There are certain parts of my yard that require cleats! The whole thing is a slope, but some parts are steeper than others. I've been in this house going on 27 years and I still don't have all the landscaping where I'd like it lol, but I've just done things when I can.
 
I now pretty much seem to be the only one who will do yard work and I really really dislike it. We have what I call an English yard - about 20 ft wide and 60 feet long bordered by bamboo on one side. Some of the challenge is to control that #*#^@' bamboo which was there before I bought the house. Now I only grow herbs in pots but there are always weeds along the other side of the yard that I may get to since we finally have a cool spell with no rain predicted. Otherwise, the yard gets a weekly cutting and tidy from a crew of men who get it done in about 15 minutes. My dh and his electric lawnmower could take a very tetchy hour or more and fortunately mowing season seems to be over.
 
cookingmylife said:
I now pretty much seem to be the only one who will do yard work and I really really dislike it. We have what I call an English yard - about 20 ft wide and 60 feet long bordered by bamboo on one side. Some of the challenge is to control that #*#^@' bamboo which was there before I bought the house. Now I only grow herbs in pots but there are always weeds along the other side of the yard that I may get to since we finally have a cool spell with no rain predicted. Otherwise, the yard gets a weekly cutting and tidy from a crew of men who get it done in about 15 minutes. My dh and his electric lawnmower could take a very tetchy hour or more and fortunately mowing season seems to be over.
Click to expand...

Those people who do the mowing amaze me! If I am doing everything (mowing, weedeating, etc), it takes me a good 3 hours or so, and that's riding part and pushing part. When we have someone come do it, they can knock everything out in less than 30 minutes just push mowing it!
 
@IntenseMagic And people say we don't need immigrants. I know the owner is now a citizen and all his workers are legal. The owner has certainly built a good business for himself and his workers. There wasn't any other company like this in our neighborhood til he started his small business. Now they handle most of the 10 or so houses on our block.
 
We also had to get someone to mow our yard because my husband's allergies got so bad he was sick for a week every time he mowed. And me and the push mower were no match for the giant hill in the backyard. But I am literally amazed every time our yard gets cut! It is insanely fast. No matter how hard we tried, it would take us five times as long.
 
I love the outdoors and love to be among the flowers and greenery but I do not like to maintain it at all. I hate it. We have a two tiered garden along the back of our yard and as much as I enjoy looking out at it, I hate to weed and maintain the shrubs. I pulled the flowers out of it years ago b/c it was just too much work deadheading and cutting them back all the time so now I have bushes and greenery which require a little less maintenance. I have never cut the lawn and don't plan to. That is either my hubby's job or we pay someone to do it. If I had more time I probably wouldn't mind doing it so much but I don't think I'd ever grow to like doing it.
 
I do my yard work. :( I hate it. I actually just came in from outside when it got too dark to work. Now I'm sitting down, catching my breath!
 
We both do our fair share- hubby usually does the mowing- I usually do the edging & the flowerbeds. This time of year, we end up with PINE- like the long, huge ponderosa pine tree needles & oodles of pinecones in the yard. The only chores our kids get paid for is picking up pine cones & dog piles! ;)
 
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