I can procrastinate like a BOSS
Nov. 16th, 2012 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaTo avoid writing my NaNo, I took a pinch hit for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dw_femslash. Yes, to avoid writing, I volunteered to write. I'm two days in the hole for NaNo but I'm going to catch up this weekend. Yeppers.
Meanwhile, let me procrastinate further with a Project Wasteland update! Project Wasteland is a story of the transformation of my back yard, and it spans a full decade, in so far as the first nine years of that decade involve me taking photos of the massive jungle to procrastinate over doing anything about it.
If you have me on Facebook, you'll have seen some of these already. Whatevs, look again, because my back yard is made of awesome now.
A LONG, LONG TIME AGO...
The stepping stones to nowhere
We literally had no clue where this path led, because there was a wall of briar roses twice as tall as me.
The shed
Full of ivy and possums.
Somewhere between then and now, I discover the ability to take panorama photos.
The remains of the shed
This is last year, with Landscaper #1, AKA First Shane. He took down the shed, cleared out the massive jungle of dead fruit trees and wisteria and ivy, and (gloriously) burned it all in a massive bonfire on the back lawn:
The Day of Agapanthus
THE STEPPING STONES LEAD TO A GATE. There is a gate in our back fence and it has sat open for ten years. (I'd worry about people wandering in, except that there's nothing back there but gum trees and a sheer drop. This is also the day that First Shane showed up with a flame thrower and went to town on the agapanthus on the right. We didn't get an after photo, because we were dying of fumes:
A Brief Intermission
Then, having defoliated the area, First Shane went away and never answered another phone call from me. I don't know if this was just one of those tradesmen things, or if he found something bizarre and Cthulhu-esque out there.
The Coming of Second Shane
There is... another... landscaper. Second Shane arrives in October this year. Second Shane is a dynamo. Before we can blink, the back yard is full of lumber, cement and teenage boys. The first thing he does is re-terrace the whole back yard.
The very next day
He puts in posts on the second terrace to start our raised garden beds.
Two weeks later
He's put in a watering system that connects to the tap at the bottom of the stairs. He's concreted the path down the side of the house. He's building the beds. The beds are massive. (Take note of the small rockery in the middle left front of the photo. That's the fishpond. It has relevance for later photos.)
First come beds, then comes gravel
Then comes Second Shane with some mysterious green stuff he throws in the beds. I don't know what it is. He could have buried a body in there, and I wouldn't mind, because our back yard is looking awesome.
Take a dirt nap in these beds!
You cannot appreciate the scale of this work, until you realise that the only access to the back yard is down a narrow (freshly concreted) path. Second Shane and his army of sons trucked all that dirt down in wheelbarrows.
Actual living entities
Second Shane gave us the okay to plant actual plants in the beds last week. Sadly, since this photo was taken, the snow peas were literally decimated. We have one pea plant left. But we're going to plant more.
Status Quo
Second Shane transferred custody of the back yard and all the living things in it to us on Tuesday. He's ripped out the fish pond. He's hoed and sowed the lawn, he's leant us some sprinklers to water said lawn. He gave us a care plan for our ailing maple tree. And miraculously, we have a garden that... looks like a real garden. "Just like a bought one," I say every night when I come home from work.
Coda: the perils of gardening
lilacsigil's Danskos pay the ultimate price of shifting the sprinklers on new lawn.
ROLL CREDITS
Bonus extra scene at the end of the credits
It's not a schwarma scene. It is a cat birthday!
Her name is Aeon, but we call her Missy. This pretty much sums up her opinion of things that aren't fish or the heater:
When she was eight, the vet diagnosed her with renal insufficiency and told us she had about six months. NOW SHE IS THIRTEEN. We have been so lucky. For her birthday, she got a microwave fish fillet and a whole lot of new dirt to own.
I don't know if my camera shoots out little infra-red beams, but she got so mad every time I pointed it at her. This whole shoot was basically her yelling "PUT THAT STUPID BEEPING THING DOWN AND PAT ME GOD DAMN!"
FIN
dw_femslash. Yes, to avoid writing, I volunteered to write. I'm two days in the hole for NaNo but I'm going to catch up this weekend. Yeppers. Meanwhile, let me procrastinate further with a Project Wasteland update! Project Wasteland is a story of the transformation of my back yard, and it spans a full decade, in so far as the first nine years of that decade involve me taking photos of the massive jungle to procrastinate over doing anything about it.
If you have me on Facebook, you'll have seen some of these already. Whatevs, look again, because my back yard is made of awesome now.
A LONG, LONG TIME AGO...
The stepping stones to nowhere
We literally had no clue where this path led, because there was a wall of briar roses twice as tall as me.
The shed
Full of ivy and possums.
Somewhere between then and now, I discover the ability to take panorama photos.
The remains of the shed
This is last year, with Landscaper #1, AKA First Shane. He took down the shed, cleared out the massive jungle of dead fruit trees and wisteria and ivy, and (gloriously) burned it all in a massive bonfire on the back lawn:
The Day of Agapanthus
THE STEPPING STONES LEAD TO A GATE. There is a gate in our back fence and it has sat open for ten years. (I'd worry about people wandering in, except that there's nothing back there but gum trees and a sheer drop. This is also the day that First Shane showed up with a flame thrower and went to town on the agapanthus on the right. We didn't get an after photo, because we were dying of fumes:
A Brief Intermission
Then, having defoliated the area, First Shane went away and never answered another phone call from me. I don't know if this was just one of those tradesmen things, or if he found something bizarre and Cthulhu-esque out there.
The Coming of Second Shane
There is... another... landscaper. Second Shane arrives in October this year. Second Shane is a dynamo. Before we can blink, the back yard is full of lumber, cement and teenage boys. The first thing he does is re-terrace the whole back yard.
The very next day
He puts in posts on the second terrace to start our raised garden beds.
Two weeks later
He's put in a watering system that connects to the tap at the bottom of the stairs. He's concreted the path down the side of the house. He's building the beds. The beds are massive. (Take note of the small rockery in the middle left front of the photo. That's the fishpond. It has relevance for later photos.)
First come beds, then comes gravel
Then comes Second Shane with some mysterious green stuff he throws in the beds. I don't know what it is. He could have buried a body in there, and I wouldn't mind, because our back yard is looking awesome.
Take a dirt nap in these beds!
You cannot appreciate the scale of this work, until you realise that the only access to the back yard is down a narrow (freshly concreted) path. Second Shane and his army of sons trucked all that dirt down in wheelbarrows.
Actual living entities
Second Shane gave us the okay to plant actual plants in the beds last week. Sadly, since this photo was taken, the snow peas were literally decimated. We have one pea plant left. But we're going to plant more.
Status Quo
Second Shane transferred custody of the back yard and all the living things in it to us on Tuesday. He's ripped out the fish pond. He's hoed and sowed the lawn, he's leant us some sprinklers to water said lawn. He gave us a care plan for our ailing maple tree. And miraculously, we have a garden that... looks like a real garden. "Just like a bought one," I say every night when I come home from work.
Coda: the perils of gardening
lilacsigil's Danskos pay the ultimate price of shifting the sprinklers on new lawn. 
Bonus extra scene at the end of the credits
It's not a schwarma scene. It is a cat birthday!
Her name is Aeon, but we call her Missy. This pretty much sums up her opinion of things that aren't fish or the heater:
When she was eight, the vet diagnosed her with renal insufficiency and told us she had about six months. NOW SHE IS THIRTEEN. We have been so lucky. For her birthday, she got a microwave fish fillet and a whole lot of new dirt to own.
I don't know if my camera shoots out little infra-red beams, but she got so mad every time I pointed it at her. This whole shoot was basically her yelling "PUT THAT STUPID BEEPING THING DOWN AND PAT ME GOD DAMN!"
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 06:00 am (UTC)I like the raised beds. So much easier to work in than bending down all the time! And Missy is so pretty. She has the perfect right to demand you put down that camera and come pay tribute like she deserves. ;D
no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 08:40 am (UTC)Don't worry - Missy is getting plenty of tribute in the form of hugs and worship.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 10:50 am (UTC)My poor shoes. Those are my favourite shoes that I can't even get in Australia again.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 04:53 am (UTC)Your shoes are rising like the phoenix from the mud! A muddy phoenix!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 12:11 pm (UTC)Your cat looks perfectly fit. Elmer--our cat who was given six months to live two years ago--has stable lab values and is doing fine.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:49 am (UTC)Go Elmer! It's such a relief every time they check her BUN, and it's still holding steady.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 01:50 pm (UTC)Missy clearly has her priorities straight.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:42 am (UTC)Missy has it all worked out. We are her slaves.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 03:11 pm (UTC)Happy Birthday to Missy the Grumpy. *g* She's beautiful.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:31 am (UTC)Missy the Grumpy accepts your praise and shines her yellow eyes in your direction.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 06:10 pm (UTC)That is an awesome looking yard. Yay, growing things. Also I'm pretty sure "decimated" technically means "reduced by one-tenth," not "reduced to one-tenth," but close enough ;)
Aww, kitty! What an awesome kitty, and how wonderful to have her for so many more years than you thought. I love the picture of her owning the dirt.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:24 am (UTC)Yeah, I think I meant 'reverse-decimated', maybe? Anyway, now it looks like one snow pea plant ate all the other and became giant. I swear it grows overnight when we're not watching it.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 06:41 pm (UTC)Maybe that snow pea plant is going to lead you to the cloud-realm of the giants? But you don't want to go there, they'll eat your bones.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 06:42 pm (UTC)HAVE
A
PUMPKIN
ZONE
I enjoyed watching this transformation! How cool! It's so gorgeous and open!
And happy birthday to Missy! She's gorgeous too.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 03:39 am (UTC)I have just located you and
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 08:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 10:57 am (UTC)I need an icon for gardens!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 11:14 am (UTC)And yes, I need an icon for growing things, too. (This is actually my cooking icon, but it serves.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 09:17 pm (UTC)