yardwork, a lot of

The past weekend was a super busy and rewarding weekend for me.

I did a lot of yard work, a lot, really. It is the first milestone of my backyard renovation project.

Every big project starts with a small step.

I started to trim a few branches out of the trees just outside of my backyard fence, as the trees were
growing rampantly blocked a lot of sunshine and wind to my yard. You know, once you cleaned up one tree,
you are seduced to clean up another, and you are addicted to the clean up work step by step.

I trimmed a lot of branches and dead twigs from the trees outside. I thought that may be all I could do
this summer.  However, the coming of my cousin brings a new chapter to this project. He is avid in garden work
back in China. My unruly backyard gives him an opportunity to apply his enthusiasm and energy into the
work he loved. He kept cleaning up more and more branches, outside, and gradually inside of my yard.

We have a huge WALL of pine trees on the west side of the yard, like a little forest.
It looks okay from outside, however, it is too thick and dirty within, with a bunch of
dead twigs and garbage on the ground.
To me, it's like a potential risk and maybe a nightmare to my baby girl.
The idea to overhaul the 'forest' haunted me for a while, but I thought it may be a project for me next year.

After my cousin cleaned up other trees, he eventually was allured to this 'forest' with ambition to get
it done this year.  As he is at home everyday, it's actually not infeasible, given his ambition and experience.

He cut down all the big branches lower than 2 meters and gathered all the dead twigs. Our green waste
put on the curb was growing every week. :-) Last week, he finally prune almost all the lower branches in
the forest, with just a huge amount of leftover on the grass to clean up.

En, the forest does look much better and the yard is getting a bit more sunshine. One lovely point is that
we can feel breeze brush through the backyard now. The yard is getting alive. We also discovered the broken
fence hidden inside the forest and it is time to replace them as well.

Given the gigantic amount of branches/twigs to remove, I thought that it's better to get rid of them sooner than
later.  So, I booked a 4'x7' utility trailer from U-Haul in the last Sunday, planning to tow all the green waste
to Surrey Waste Transfer Station in the northern Surrey.  It's a first experience to me to attach a trailer to my
car. Fortunately, there is a hitch installed on the back already.

My brother-in-law, my cousin and me, worked together to cut, prune, and bundle all the branches, the broken fence into
smaller bunches on Saturday, to get them ready for Sunday. Then, on the Sunday, we pile the bunch in the trailer and
towed it to the transfer station. TWICE. We are done and it costs me $33 dollars to remove all the green waste. ($59 per tonne)

I was discussing with my cousin about the next step once we removed all the waste. I thought it might be good to put some
gravel, or small pebble underneath the trees. The utility trailer helped in this case. After I removed the waste, I bought
a scoop load of 'pea gravel' from the Art's Nursery, which is very close to the transfer station. The whole load costs me
only $31 dollar inc. taxes. It's dirty cheap. But you can't get them unless you have a pick-up or trailer to transport them.

I need to buy a wheelbarrows tonight and spread the gravel onto the forest.

My to-do list or the plan for my backyard.

* A green house on my side yard, built with aluminum alloy or wood
* A small arch built with the tree branches I cut
:x
* Flowers on the north side of the grass
* A small fountain, tentatively

I also want to buy some red lava rock to cover and decorate the yard.

A lot of yard work has been done and a lot more are still waiting ...