The rain, the park, and other things

Splash block back in place.

We are in a light to moderate drought here in central New York this summer. Drought, of course, is relative and folks in California would likely laugh at our "dryness". In any case, a drought it is and in the middle of it, in typical New York fashion, we had flooding. In just a couple hours three to four inches of rain fell over the Binghamton area. Suddenly, the sun broke through but it was to late and the heavy rain led to flooding of underpasses, parking lots, and unfortunately, our basement. It was minor to be sure, less than an inch in the corner, but it was poorly timed, and poorly placed wetting some large and thick pieces of particle board I was saving for future projects, It was a quick clean up even with my mini shop vac but the damage was done, both physically and mentally as I will take partial blame. I had removed the gutter splash block to help the grass grow. This allowed the gushers coming out of the downspouts to run right down along the basement wall.

My yard, the fence, and the park beyond.

As I have mentioned many times, we have a large lot which is bordered on the north by a small city park. Between the park and our yard is a 3 foot chain link fence that is rather beat up, but serves the purpose of marking the border along with a row of trees. A couple months ago, the new Binghamton Parks Commissioner saw me in the yard and stopped in to chat. He has begun an initiative to remove the fences around the city parks and wanted to know if I objected. Well, yes. What's to keep kids from playing to discover my large side yard and thinking it's part of the park? In any case we had a nice conversation but I was left with the feeling that even though he had asked, the fence was coming down, So, after some thought I decided to call the mayor's office to voice my opinion (I've met the mayor, he seems like a nice guy) and was firmly blocked from any access by an assistant. I also shot the mayor a message on Twitter to no effect. If anyone has an inside line to the mayor, please let me know. I'd really hate to lose that fence.

Weeds gone, marble in.

I was pretty embarrassed by my whining about the motion light in my previous blog and practically the next day I had the new LED lighting installed. For now I have it set for a low light, all night illumination that becomes full brightness when it senses movement.

The weed problem around the back corner and back of the house had bugged me to no end so I ripped up all the weeds, put down some weed blocker plastic and covered with marble chips that simply caught my eye at home Depot.

Stump removal by a free professional.

A couple days ago a friendly neighbor dropped by to follow through on a promise to remove the stumps that were leftover from our bush removal last fall. Jim showed up with a chainsaw and all the safety equipment to remove the stumps. Things were going well until he discovered that some bees had built a hive in the stump. He asked if we had some spray and despite knowing that somewhere we have it, I couldn't lay my hands on any bee spray. No problem Jim ran down the street to his place and came back to end the threat and finished removing the stumps.

Stumps are gone, grass is still patchy. 

 I'm still cutting the lawn with my old and tiny push mower. Prices are starting to drop on riding tractors so while I get exercise I'm potentially saving money. Also, there is still the Fall equipment auction to look forward to and perhaps get a bargain. In the meantime, I'll continue to push and extol the virtues of lawn mowing and the exercise that comes with it to my lovely wife
and perhaps she'll join me in this fun task. .

So, did anyone pick up on the references to a certain cheesy 60's bubblegum pop song in this blog? If so, please  list any references you found in the comments section below. Thanks for reading.