If you ever have lawn mower problems – specifically a Toro – here is a great instructional video I found on YouTube on how to do a basic tune-up and clean the carburetor. I was having some problems with our mower, and the instructions from this video worked like magic. After I finished cleaning everything the mower started right up.
Category Archive: Westview Bungalow
Lawn Mower Problems?
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Catching Up
It’s sooo hot in Atlanta right now there is nothing to do except stay inside in the air conditioning, so I figured it is a perfect time to catch up with the blog. We’re really far behind, so I’m just going to post a bunch of photos at once. This is pretty much spring until now (beginning of July).
When it was cold outside (aka during the winter) we did some work inside. Such as painting the trim around the kitchen windows.
We also put both doors on the bulter’s pantry! I still need to paint the right one, but maybe I’ll do that today.
In the early spring we planted some seeds. These plants have now been in the garden for months, and they are much bigger.
Our annual trip to Grower’s Outlet to aquire new additions for the garden.
All of the plants in the garden in the spring. Note our new fescue lawn that we seeded in the fall of 2010.
Lastly, this is how the yard looked after we installed brick borders around all of the flower beds.
Some of the veggies we grew in the garden. Carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, etc.
Steffi trying a mini carrot.
And hopefully the next time we make a post we won’t be apologizing about falling behind!
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Cutting Trees
Since the day we bought the house we had problems with some trees on the border of our property dropping limbs. The day we got back from closing we had a giant limb in the middle of our yard. Then about two and half years ago there was the story of half the tree coming down on our neighbor’s shed and part of ours. The remainder of that tree and another tree were scarily growing over our shed, along with a “curtain” of English Ivy (aka the devil plant).We figured it was only going to be a matter of time before one of the trees would decide to land on our shed, so back in February we thought it was about time to do something about it.
In the City of Atlanta you have to get a permit to have trees cut down, so after we got the city arborist to come by and agree that the trees were dangerous and not healthy we got our permit to take them down. We then had the guys from Tree Tailors come out to cut them down and haul them off. We also took the opportunity to have them prune the Oak tree in our front yard. The experience felt kind of like a Spiderman movie – David was dangling between trees on ropes!
Spiderman tree cutting
Here are the before and after pictures:
It took some getting used to initially, but I think it feels pretty normal now. It ought to be interesting to see how this will affect the sun coming into the yard. Now I’m just itching to get a privacy fence!
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Ode to the Kudzu House
One thing Steffi forgot to mention in her post below is the legendary kudzu house next to us has finally sold!! This is really exciting news. (If you guys are reading this, thanks for the Christmas cookies!) The house foreclosed a while ago, so it has been empty and on the market for quite some time. Before that it was owned by some uber-slumlords that did far below the bare minimum.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve mowed the lawn next door, and Steffi and I have both spent hours fighting the kudzu that tries to sneak over the fence. We’ve even sprayed poison on the kudzu a number of times to try and keep it at bay.
For memory’s sake here is a look back at all of the exciting photos…
And the best one for last.
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Fall Plantings & Paint Stripping
*Echo-echo-echo*
Yes, hello. We’re still alive. I feel like I need to get out the duster to get rid of the cobwebs on this blog. Once again, not much to report in the home renovation section. Sadly for our home, Patrick and I have been too busy with neighborhood organization and neighborhood planning unit work to focus on renovations. Good for the neighborhood though, I suppose, as we see more and more people buying up the vacant homes!
The only boring stuff I have to report is that we planted some fall/winter plants. The new bed by the sidewalk has Pansies and Dianthus in it. (We got two 18-pack of Dianthus for $2.50! Score!) We had good luck with the previous Dianthus plantings, so we figured we may as well keep going with them. We also planted some Dwarf Mondo Grass along the path. Unfortunately two will have to be replaced in the spring, but I’m looking forward to them filling in next year.
Front yard dianthus
Then we also decided to divide the Hosta’s behind the shed. In the process we re-arranged the whole bed. (It was looking a bit of a mess following the tree falling on it.)
Dividing Hostas
We also worked on a little bit more paint stripping on the bathroom built-in linen closet doors. (Or should I say door – singular.)
Paint stripping
Merry Christmas from Steffi, Patrick, Buster, and Foster!
Buster and Foster
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