Coronavirus Update: Week 8

If the governor doesn't extend this, hopefully we only have 1 more week of this "stay at home" order! I'm ready for things to start opening up again! (Cautiously.)

Last weekend, we started thinning the dead from our large privet hedge (among other big yard projects). Here's picking up where that left off:

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Day 50: there was talk of rain coming on Tuesday, so I stopped off at the compost site to get some compost to sprinkle on my grass seed in order to help keep it in place (and to start stock-piling compost for our garden):

35 gallons of compost. HEAVY.


Fresh compost sprinkled over the grass seed in the shady areas that don't do well.
(And we trimmed back those bushes to expose more dead grass.)


Parts of the backyard.


Trimmed the day lilies and hostas, and re-did parts of the brick edger.

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Day 51: my wife worked from home on Monday and Tuesday, and she heard something in the dormer of our 3rd floor on Monday. She dismissed it, but I told her it was squirrels right away. On Tuesday, she finally agreed with me, so I stopped at Menards to get supplies. Menards is only letting in so many people at a time, so I had to wait outside for a while:

Here was my Instagram post later that day:

"Found/heard a squirrel in the soffit of the dormer in our attic (3rd story). I went to see how it was getting in armed with mothballs and squirrel repellent spray. I heard it on the other side of the dormer, so I cinched up my hoodie (safety first) to pull back the soffit and pull out as much of its nest as possible. There was A LOT. It watched me from over the peak. Then it charged me and contemplated eating my face off. (No joke.) Then there were 2! Both back in the soffit. THEN as I was scraping out the nest, I pulled one critter out with my scraper and it ran off. Later (as I was soaking the area in squirrel-be-gone spray), the other one shot out of the hole and took off. Nearly had a heart attack 25’ off the ground.

tl;dr - Deadly squirrels nearly killed my entire family, but we all lived. Looking for a contractor to re-do some flashing who isn’t afraid of tiny fast moving beasties."

I heard them later that evening, but then my wife heard NOTHING all day Wednesday when she was working up there! We hopefully flushed them out for good! Now to get a contractor up there to seal things up (in those first 2 photos of me, the holes are on either side way up the roof where the dormer flashing meets the shingles - I don't have the gear for working up there!).

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Day 52: we got all the dead branches cleared from out hedges! Here's a "during and after" shot showing my wife and Henry in the top photo working their way around the corner and down the alley, with then the "after" photo showing HOW MUCH YOU CAN SEE THROUGH the hedge behind that tree and to the right now that the large dead branches are out:

The left side along the front sidewalk was already done in the top
photo, and those are younger privet anyway that didn't need much work.


This doesn't look like that much, but it goes all the way back to the garage! FOUR full-size pickup loads!

And I posted this on Facebook that day:

"BIG THANKS to fellow Marker-turned-STMer Brian B for stopping by with his truck to make FOUR trips to the compost site to clear our dead privet pile. That was super nice of you! I hope our arms can heal up! (This pic was after the 2nd load, so it got worse...)"

Then Mama took the boys on a nearly 6 mile ride (round trip) to a ball field that night. Her post:

"We passed four different ballfields on our bikes tonight before landing here in order to get out some squirrels. Henry: Mom, I never knew I liked baseball so much!"

My pic of them as they were getting back as I was weeding the front garden.

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Day 53: The plants are lookin’ FINE on the porch. One more week before the weather is good enough for them to be planted. #UrbanGarden

Zinnas and cilantro on top. Tomatoes and cukes on the bottom.


Dressed up for "sports teams" day (it would be the week to dress up if they were actually in school).


I needed a trainer ride, so we finished up Charlie's homework in the basement with me on my bike.


Another outing with Mama in the evening. Her post:
"It appears I’ve been hired as the starting (only) pitcher for the summer."

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Day 54: a BIG day in the garden neighbor's yard. Here was my post at the end of the day:

"A big difference over the last 24 hours! Our neighbor who’s yard is next to our narrow garden behind our garage said we can use her yard for a bigger garden as long as we share veggies with her. DEAL! I built two 2x10’ beds yesterday (which will triple our garden space). This morning, I borrowed a sod cutter, installed the beds, staked them down, and filled them with soil and compost. (Peat moss will be mixed in soon.) Once St. Paul offers free wood chips, we’ll spread that around on the bare dirt. Our neighbor got home from work tonight and loved it: 'This is the best news of my week!' When it finally warms up next week, we’re planting!! #UrbanGarden"

TRYING to help with the sod cutter.


Note the far box: the bottoms were filled with the upside down sod.


Pulling back some of the sod inside to cut the wire mesh
so I could pound stakes in and screw them to the box.


There are our old, narrow, weathered boxes along our garage.


Filled with a few bags of generic "garden soil" and then lots of compost
from our nearby St. Paul compost site. Peat moss yet to be added.




24 hours difference. (Her old garden bed was about 3x5' for reference.)

The next day I posted this video saying "Henry was a great help bustin’ sod yesterday:"

Direct link: youtu.be/uJaAQQN6_N4

The FIRST pass was hard for me (I had to stop and catch my breath!), but the rest were a lot easier once it had been started.

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Day 55: a pretty boring, drizzly day. I locked myself away to do a lot of grading (both of my classes had projects due 2 days before), and I noticed my arms were STILL quite beat up from moving the brush pile days before:

My legs ain't pretty either.

My wife got out for a 12 mile run that evening as the boys and I watched another 40 mintues of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:"

Her caption: "Decided to delay my run today so Steve could get some grading done and I could get things done around the house. The rain cleared out the other people but not the beautiful spring flowers popping up. What a beautiful evening!"

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Day 56: from an Instagram post:

"SIX!!! We all took an impromptu trip to chase waterfalls with our newest six-year-old. We had a picnic lunch, but got too cold so we sang “happy birthday” and had cupcakes in the car. ❤️😄🌳"

And then a funny thing happened at the park last night: we were playing catch and skating when three 60-something women showed up to learn how to fly their drones. It was adorable. "WATCH OUT FOR THE CHILDREN!!" one of them shouted at one point. And one ended up flying over the interstate and it crashed in the trees just over the big fence from the park. Henry climbed the fence and saved it!

It's over the fence between his elbow and that thick dead branch. He saved it!

I'll have more photos of our state park trip shortly (#54 within the last 3 years), and I'll have more of the garden as we get things planted later this week. Have a good week!