Weekend to-do

The past few weeks have been tough. The cold weather has kept us inside, and limited our number of projects. Mostly we just want to sit on the couch, with a fire, and drink wine and watch crap TV. Even at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon.

But this weekend is different. Today’s forecast is sunny in the high 60′s. Drastically different than last week’s freezing weather with snow and ice. The yard needs work. Some of the plants didn’t make it, and need to be cleaned-up. Specifically the Passiflora against the back fence, and the buffalo grass near the deck.

Speaking of grass, the back lawn which is all bermuda grass needs some pre-spring clean up. It’s the middle of february right now, and the lawn is brown and tall. This isn’t unhealthy, it’s just that Bermuda grass goes dormant in the winter in Austin.

To encourage a healthy back lawn I fertilized last fall before dormancy set in with generic bermuda grass fertilizer, and stopped watering it. Slowly it turned completely brown, and looks dead. But I know it’s not. This weekend I’ll set the blade on my American reel mower to 1-inch high, and bag all the clippings. This will expose more of the ground to the warm sunlight, and encourage a nice healthy lawn.

Here’s a to-do list of a few other things we hope to accomplish this weekend:

1. Mow back lawn
2. clean up dead plants that didn’t make it through the freeze
3. a bit of laundry
4. damp-mop the hardwood floors
5. Walk the dog twice
6. visit any sunday garage sales in the neighborhood
7. change the belt on Elise – it’s been squeaking when the engine is cold, and has more than 1/2 inch of play when deflected