Holly hacking

Today I decided to distract myself from getting any real work done on the deck by attacking a trio of large holly bushes that line the south side of our house. They’ve been neglected, and have grown taller than my ability to trim them, so went at them very aggressively with a sawzall and lopped them in half. It’s was a hack job, but it’ll grow back. Apparently holly bushes can withstand having their main trunk cut down to the ground and they will come back. That’s probably what I’ll wind up doing, as the inside branches are all gnarled and bent, twisting in every direction. It looks like shit, basically.

I’m not quite sure why hollies were chosen for this spot, since that side of the house gets the most sun of the entire yard. I imagine that they’re probably contributing to some sort of cooling effect on that wall, but I’d much rather put that area to some more productive use. Apparently hollies, in addition to being used for hedges, can also be used to feed livestock during the winter months, assuming the leaves can be cut and allowed to mellow for a couple of weeks.

I’ve actually been on a bit of a permaculture kick the last day or two. Missus’s little garden is producing cucumbers and tomatoes now, and I’m thinking a lot about how I want to redo the yard. I hate cutting grass, and have been trying to figure out ways to make the yard more natural. I’ve let the back quarter go, near the small drainage ditch in the back. I’ve been keeping the tall grass down, letting natural bushes pop up here and there, letting seedlings grow. I just wish I knew what to do with the front yard. We’ve got a small crepe myrtle, which is a native plant, but we’ve got a row of juniper bushes — another bane of mine — against the front porch, as well as a flowering pear tree in the front. The pear tree is not the fruit producing kind, but is apparently an invasive species that was planted there when the house was built. When it flowers in the spring, it smells like a dead animal is rotting in the front yard. It’s not very pleasant and Missus and I have both decided that it needs to go. We’ve just been having a hard time deciding what to put there, although to day she said she wants a fig tree there.

Otherwise, today was pretty lazy. I did my monthly household accounting, and did my weekly rotation on my Perp.Fi positions. I pulled in over six hundred fifty dollars, which is close to my post-tax take home pay before I quit my job. Once the market takes back off I should be sitting pretty. I may put some more capital to work.

I’m also hoping to meet a friend from Twitter who is in the area for a couple days. We’ve never met in real life, but he quit his job a month before I did, so we’re both full-timers now.