How To Eat An Elephant

one bite at a time.

Obviously. :)

This is what a dear friend reminded me when I fell into a whining despair over this:

What we liked to call the Zombie Apocalypse playground.

Because what I envision my backyard looking like is a little something more like this:

yup, if you just squint really hard, my backyard looks like this...

So it is important that I remember that this was once the view from my kitchen window. 

Midway through renovations our garage was a "storage site". Please notice the 1/2 dead plants.

What doesn't come across in these photos is the smell... which is decidedly CAT.  Did I mention that I once saw a possum wandering through the backyard? And that we found a termite "family" living in the garage?

So lately I've been doing google searches like this:

How do you keep stray cats from pooping in your plants?

(Quick Answer: With diligence, hard work and perseverance you might be able to persuade them to poop elsewhere, temporarily.)

Are you allowed to burn brush in your backyard?

(Quick Answer: NO.)

Possums? 

(Quick Answer: Shudder. But, they do kill rats. So... there's that.)

I am a wealth of information. Thank God for Google. And for the pest control specialists, tree removal service, fencing contractor, cable guy and telephone guy who have all paid visits to our house in the last 2 weeks. We finally finished tearing down that termite infested, humongous garage, and now we are dealing with what remains: 1/2 a broken fence, four dead trees, a whole bunch of rubble, tangled wires and mysteriously, a giant pile of broken glass.

The good news is: Not all of our potted plants died. Possums rarely come out during the day. And, that garage floor that we can't afford to have removed right now is going to make an awesome basketball court.

This afternoon our backyard looked like this:

Which, is like, at least 1/2 an elephant's worth of progress.

Someday I'll have my Zen garden. This summer we are going for a safe place to shoot hoops, and maybe grow a few flowers. 

So come on over! We are about to set up the barbeque!...