WHY CAN'T YOU BE A GOAT, HEY?

We've got a .49 acre (half an acre, to y'all) half arrowhead lot in West Sechelt. It used to be a BC Hydro pole storage location, which accounts for the odd shape of the lot and why we're surrounded almost entirely by other people's backyards.

While the obvious benefit is privacy, what I failed to consider on purchasing the house 25 years ago, is the proliferation of blackberries, salal, vines, and chokeweed. The stuff is un-killable by affordable and environmentally acceptable methods. It crawls over the wooden fence tops, and through the heavy wire cattle fencing. Where the fence has rotted away entirely (down in the Lost Corner of our Yard, 6 feet below everything else) all these weeds just run amok. And due to the lack of sun - all of these beautiful shade trees - we don't even get berries or flowers from them. Harrumph.

So I took the only avenue available: I grew me some TEENAGERS. That works great during the school year, but when a rainy summer like this one comes, no waving $20 bill seems to excite the blood as the much-reduced amount did for me when I was their age.

No, it's back to me now, what with my honey off working in the city and the kids off on Dadcations. And you know what? I've discovered that as long as I don't have to mow in the worst heat of the day, I like it. Mowing is like cleaning floors, or folding laundry... from chaos emerges order, and it's a highly visual reward. Especially since my new office set up post-flood has me staring right at the lawn all day.

It might be full of clover and moss, but it's my yard. Now if I can only get that fricking weedeater started without tearing a shoulder out...