You CAN Have too Many Toys--or Trying to Mow the Yard

Boone with his newest thrift store toy
(she ain't gonna get her stinking hands on THIS one!)

The whole place looks awful right now. The grass is high and raggedy, the weeds have taken over the flower beds.. and then there are the toys. Lots and lots and lots of toys strewn about the yard. Most of them are old stuffed animals, but there are also old shoes, sticks and stolen things.

Believe me, this isn't even half of them.

I guess it's one of those things that you just get used to, and you don't realize how it looks, until you have visitors. Seeing stuffed monkeys and raccoons and fish and bears laying about in various askew poses with stuffing hanging out doesn't even get a flicker of an eyelid from me. However when guests nervously chuckle about them, while looking about a bit uneasily, it tends to make a person look at it with fresh eyes.

So, as usual, I had visitors (sheep buyers, naturally) and the place was a wreck, so then in shame I decide to try and reclaim a bit of it. Once that is done, I will not have anymore visitors til it is once again a disaster. It's the law or something.

The first thing to do, was to mow the yard. However the first, first thing to do, was to pick up all the toys and make a pile of them out of the way. Also to pick up all the tiny bits of shredded stolen Styrofoam scattered in the yard. Since I was at it, I got a garbage bag and picked up the worst of the slain toys to throw away. It was an ordeal, as a certain big drooly Dogue was following every step of the way. Said Dogue was highly concerned about perfectly good (in his eyes) toys disappearing into the trash sack and kept interfering. While I was at it, I cleaned up his pen of all the beyond hope toys as well. I have plenty of others to replace them with, as I tried to explain to Boone.

After sacking up the worst of the worst I piled the rest up out of the way, with Boone promptly unpiling them and moving them back into the yard. It was slow going for awhile.

All said and done though, even if the yard is still a stuffed toy graveyard, it looks much, much better. I was able to get most of it mowed (rest tomorrow night), and weeds and non-productive plants removed. I also watered the garden, weeded and tidied up the plants. After a good soaking from the hose, all looks decidedly better. As for outside the yard--it'll have to remain shaggy for awhile, as I will be turning the sheep out there for some actual green grazing.