matching tracksuits

In order to create, we must destroy.

Partial destruction is oxymoronic: in the process of destroying, we often find we need to destroy more than we'd initially anticipated.

One cannot destroy only halfway, though one can create halfway. It's called cutting corners.

Living in a house highlights that mystery, for a house is itself a mystery.

There are leaks that leave tracks, and sinks that have no visible connection to the main drain line.

"When you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out. In." You know, it's going to be alright. Eventually.

With new grass everywhere -- "baby grass" as L calls it -- we do a lot of watering these days.

It's enough to make me think we should have installed an irrigation system.

But then we wouldn't get sights like these.

Last year, we overseeded our front yard. It looked fantastic.

"We have the best grass on the block!" K and I would congratulate each other. It was thick, lushly dark, and totally carpeted our entire front yard.

Over this summer, it all died.

All of it.

We looked at our wretched front yard and looked at what it used to be like, and a sort of "why do we even try?" depression would set in.

But we don't give up. Not we. We continue to dump money into projects that probably should be left alone. So last week, we rented semi-heavy machinery,

and started all over.

Technically, it was called "dethatching." Practically, it was called "pulling up all the grass, most of which had long-since died."

We were left with rows of rubbish -- weeds, dead grass, almost-dead grass -- that had died for mysterious reasons. Bugs? Disease? (Certainly not fungus: it was too dry this summer for any fungus to survive more than a few moments.)

Whatever it was, we didn't want it. So ten bags of it went out to the curb.

What a waste, really. It got me thinking -- if our lawn survives this coming summer -- whether or not I could simply run our mulching mower over the dethatched refuse and let the yard self-feed.

After applying top soil, mulch, seed, fertilizer, and straw, the rain came. After many dry weeks, we had thirty-six hours of continual rain, followed by sporadic showers through the following week.

I couldn't have planned it better if I'd tried.

A week later:

It's almost worth of FailBlog: I cut down a tree in the backyard. Those two clauses would be enough to make many worry. "Did it fall on your house?" "Did it damage your neighbor's property?" I miscalculated, but nothing so awful.

The tree -- diseased and dying -- was a mite, just a tiny bit too tall. A few inches. Of what significance would a few inches be in our almost infinite galaxy? For the want of a nail and all that...

When the tree fell (after much tugging and physical cajoling, for I didn't want it to fall on our neighbor's fence), the top portion caught a branch of a neighboring tree.

And there it remained.

Today, I took care of the problem, but not without some trepidation. As it stood -- or rather, half-stood -- I didn't know which way it would finally fall. Cutting from the bottom seemed most logical: eventually, gravity would serve to create a fulcrum out of the weakened part of the tree, pulling it in on itself.

It worked. But not after I literally cut through the entire tree, a nerve-wrenching experience. I could see the tree lurching this way or that, cracking me in the thigh, breaking a leg, an arm, a whole bag of bones. I cut through to the mid-point, then made paranoid careful cuts: squeeze the chainsaw's trigger, a little cutting, then a retreat.

In the end, I won: no broken bones, and the wood is now is now curing. And I'm finally coming down from my chainsaw-testosterone high.

We still have pictures a hang, a television to buy, and a few final touches, but the living room, by and large, is done.