Yardwork: My new human-powered lawn mower!

I spent a bunch more time in the yard again this weekend. Filled three huge garbage bags full of leaves and brush, cut down and bundled up lots of dead and stray branches, and mowed! I bought a lawn mower first thing on Saturday morning. It's a thing of beauty. I had already let the lawn get way too tall, so it struggled a bit on the tallest, weediest patches. I think it will be fine once I get the lawn a little more under control, but I'm hoping to find someone to let me borrow a weedwacker to tame some of the problem spots.





In other news, my hostas are growing really well. And the south side of my front yard is crazy fern city!





All the yardwork uncovered some new surprises. First, I there's an odd hole in the deck. It looks like there's some kind of electrical cord in it. I wonder if there used to be some kind of built in outdoor lighting there or something.



Noticed a spot on the deck that needs repair:

I also discovered some bleeding hearts growing in the front. Wow!

And is this a calla lilly? Get out of town! I didn't even know you could grow those here. I thought they seemed tropical.

Finally, the most exciting thing that's happened in a long time: As I was digging through all the leaves and weeds and brush in the front yard, I found a drainage pipe! When I bought the house, the inspector told me to extend all my gutters further away from the house, to avoid a wet foundation. He said you can bury the downspouts and have them come out toward the street, but it would be expensive. Anyway, I found this drainage pipe, and couldn't figure out what it was draining. The gutters just empty into the yard. But then I raked up by where the downspout is, and realized it's all rocks up there. There must be some kind of drainage system under the rocks. In farming, my mom and dad would call that "tiling" or putting tile in the fields. I'm going to assume that's what's happening here, and I'm celebrating the lower potential for a wet basement!