Mad Vrs Mad's Back Yard Part 4: You Need a Plan.

Mrs. Science has what you might call a slight allergy to nature. When certain, greener, forms of nature rubs up against her she tends to get itchy. Unfortunately our back yard is full of green, itch inducing St. Augustine grass.

Being reasonable people, Mrs. Science and I, have tried to peacefully coexist with our grass. The grass, however, has refused to stop causing my Mrs Science "the ichies".

We considered water sanctions against the grass, but feared the collateral damage sanctions would have on our banana trees. Also, we doubted we could get Russia and France onboard.

So instead of sanctions we proposed a compromise: Since the grass refused peaceful co-exist with us, we would divide the backyard into two independent regions: Northern and Southern Backyardistan. The grass would be free to govern Southern Backyardistan as it saw fit provided it would submit to regular mowings and the occasional IAEA inspections.

For a week there was no respones from the grass. Then, in an entirely unprovoked attack, they gave my wife a terrible case of itchy legs and some welts as well.

We had no choice but to declare the grass a terrorist organization and go on the offensive.

Since beginning "Operation Backyard Freedom", the Lawn Hog and I have been making the a long hard slog across Northern Backyardistan, slowly driving the grassy green menace from our side of the yard. We will not rest until we have freed Northern Backyardistan from the yoke of grassy tyranny and established an itch free democracy in it's place.

But freeing Northern Backyardistan from the grassy menace is only half the battle. Like Franklin used to say, "It's your back yard for as you can keep it". And we all know that the grass never sleeps.

We also knew ('cuase we watch CNN from time to time) that we needed a plan if we were to have any hope of converting Northern Backyardistan from an repressive grass based terror state into a stable, patio based, liberal democracy.

The grass may be tyrannical, but it keeps erosion and drainage problems in check. We had to be prepared the meet those challenges, and the others that would come, once the grass was gone.

In short we needed a plan.

So we went and got Google Sketchup and went to work.

Pretty soon we had our first pass at a plan for our back yard. Take a look!



Also. Get Sketchup. It's cool and it's free. You can istall it in minuets and once you do you can examine our back yard from every possible angle.

Mad Vrs Mad's Back Yard : Start Simple.

We did not neglect the front yard when we started our landscaping.







Also, Wilber has had too much coffee.

Mad Vrs Mad's Back Yard : Saint Augustine Sucks.

The first rule of buying plants for your new back yard paradise is

"Make sure you already have beds to plant them in."

The second ruled is :

"Make sure you leave enough room in the truck for the driver."

Auto accidents and traffic citations aside, the first rule is really the most important.

Making beds means getting rid of Saint Augustine and as you might expect, a saint like Augustine will not go quietly. My first thought was to hire a pack of Vandals to lay siege to my back yard. It was that or a shovel.

Turns out the Vandals were vanquished in 534. Who knew. A shovel it is.

Removing St Augustine by shovel really sucks. Eventually I decided to deploy the "Lawn Hog"!



What a difference power tools make! The "Lawn Hog", aka Black-n-Decker's electric edger, has a trencher setting that let's you cut 1.5 inch deep trenches in sod. I know a 1.5 inch trench doesn't sound like much but it makes a huge difference.

Start by using the Lawn Hog to cut rows in your sod between 8 and 10 inches in width. Next use your shovel to work along both sides of row of sod until you have freed it from the soil below. Starting at the end of the row, roll up the sod until you have removed about 5 feet of your row. You could roll up more, but sod is heavy - remember that landscaping is an endurence sport. Cut the roll away from the rest of the sod and toss it in your wheelbarrow.



You will need to clean out the Lawn Hog every after every 10 to 20 feet of trenching. Make sure you unplug it before you stick your fingers into the blade area.



After just a few short hours of slightly less than back-breaking effort, you will think you are ready to start planting. You will, of course, be wrong!

After you have removed all the grass the next step is to put in the landscape edging. We recommend you buy the metal edging for use against your fence. Primarily because you can hit it with a hammer. Did I mention you will need a hammer?



The hammer in the center is for pussies and carpenters. Don't buy it. What you want is a 3 pound masons hammer like the one on the left.

"Why?" You ask.

Simple. "Physics." Let's have a quick review:

Newton's most important contribution to science was not gravity, calculus, or the laws of motion parts 1, 2, and 3. It is what has come to be called "Newton's 0th Law of Physics" which is commonly stated as :

"For any real world problem P: your chances of resolving P are directly directly proportional to the amount of blunt force you can bring to bare on P."

Or, as Newton himself used to say :

"Whenever I'm flummoxed, the first thing I do is get out my big hammer and just whack the living shit out of whatever it is that's flummoxing me."

Putting in landscaping edging along your fence is not a subtle job. Each of your fence post will be planted in concrete and you will need to remove some of that concrete in order to bury your edging. Start by putting the metal edging along the inside of your fence. Be sure to run the edging between the fence posts and the fence.

Next take your masons hammer and your masons chisel (the blue thing on the right in the last picture) and, as necessary, bang out enough concrete from each fence post to get an inch or two of your edging below ground. Then stake your edging down and level your bed.

Now you are ready to plant something. We recommend that if you paid more than $10.00 for the plant you are putting into your new bed, you actually take the time to read and follow the instructions that came with it. We have tried this both ways and we can say definitively that "Following planting instructions GOOD, Not following planting instructions BAD."

With any luck you will get your first plant into the ground and watered sometime around 10:00pm. Hopefully your new digital camera has a decent flash. Our's does (it's a Casio ZX-60, Costco had a sale) so you get one last picture.

Mad vrs Mad's Back Yard : The Banana-Republication of The Labs

It started off innocently enough. The beautiful Mrs. Science and I were watching Moon over Parador and I thought

"What a cool little banana republic Parador is. We should get one of our own.

Immediately I started formulating plans to take over Parador and turn it into our ideal vacation spot.

There were, of course, setbacks. To start Mrs. Science was not exactly "on board" with the idea : something about "keeping my megalomania in check", and the whole "human rights" thing came up, but I wore her resistance down with promises of banana trees lined courtyards and moon-lit flagstone patios.

Then it turned out there was no Parador. The closest thing we could find was Paraguay. Which seemed close enough at first. Unfortunately, the Paraguayan people turned out to be both smarter, more dedicated to their national sovereignty, and handier with Kalashnikovs than "Moon over Parador/Paraguay" would have you believe.

Also, Paraguay is not as pretty as Parador was in the movie and it had mosquitoes. Lots and lots of mosquitoes. Mrs. Science hates mosquitoes.

Long story, short: we had to cancel the whole adventure and leave rather quickly. On our way out Mrs Science pointed out that we did have a back yard that we weren't really using and maybe it would be more productive to focus on the more achievable goal of bringing a little slice of Parador to the Labs.

And so it began...