Brownstoner Garden Day 2
Here’s how far our garden contractors got yesterday. It’s looking like we may have to keep the iron posts in on the lot line–they are proving to be impossible to remove. The contractors say they can build a wood post around each one. Previously: Removing the Chain Link [Brownstoner]
Here’s how far our garden contractors got yesterday. It’s looking like we may have to keep the iron posts in on the lot line–they are proving to be impossible to remove. The contractors say they can build a wood post around each one.
Previously: Removing the Chain Link [Brownstoner]
Do you guys have any idea how envious I am that you even have garden plans to argue over? At least I can work on my landlords garden and get full use of it but we’ve spent the last two summers just trying to get rid of a 50 year accumulation of garbage that the former owners simply dumped, instead of hauling it away. The composted stuff is so deep I’ve pulled out carpeting, metal pipe, miles of old phone and cable wire, a 1960’s batmobile and my personal favorite- an old rotary lawnmower.
At one point we talked about getting rid of the topmost stuff and then planting but the soil is so full of broken glass and old cans of toxic stuff that I envision planting stuff and everything comes up named Audrey. Any suggestions how we can deal with this?
All good. Moving on…
Mr. B:
(1) I was NOT the 8:48 poster who termed your decision “redicoulous,{” nor whoever insulted the design of your garden. If nothing else, I’m a better speller than that. And it doesn’t fit the tenor of my later posts. And it’s just not my style. Please go back and check your IP logs — you will see that I posted 3:22, 9:02 and 9:16. The rest were some other jerk. I wish you would check more closely before pinning me with obnoxious posts I did not write.
(2) I didn’t post my handle because I prefer to post anonymously when giving details of my home, reno or life in general that I feel might “out” me in some way or another. Call me paranoid, but that’s my preference, and, since you don’t require registration, it’s my prerogative. I’m posting my handle now since you’ve already posted it yourself. (Classy move, that.)
To sum up: For anyone who’s interested, this is a job a person can do themselves without it taking over your whole life. If you, like Mr. B, prefer to hire out the job, that’s also fine. I could care less.
With that, I’ll drop it. I’m going to assume you mistakenly thought I posted the earlier, rude and judgemental posts and that’s why you responded the way you did. For my part, you’ve got enough goodwill points stored up through the years of great blogging. Best.
Sorry if we overreacted but calling our decision “redicoulous” was inflammatory to begin with. We probably shouldn’t have upped the ante but even we lose our cool sometimes despite all our preaching to others about etiquette. We never knocked the DIY approach, it’s just not practical for us right now and your posts had a very preachy tone of “real men don’t hire contractors” that presumed a knowledge of our situation that you couldn’t possibly have. You can go on ad nauseam about how you don’t like the design of the garden but please refrain from the personal jabs–we’ll try to do the same. Plus, if you’d signed your name, lvp, we’d probably taken the whole thing more in stride. On old regular like you has got some good will points stored up 😉
8:44 —
My wife would “babysit” while I worked, I while she did, and — like so many other jobs when you have small kids — a lot of work got done during naps. Like I said, maybe Mr B has a different situation, maybe he just doesn’t want to, and we’re no better than he is for having done it differently. I was just trying to make the point, for him or anyone else considering it, that it can be done, that it doesn’t need to be a full-time job, and that I’m personally happy to have done it. That said, the B family can do whatever they want, and good luck to them.
“First of all, 3:22. where did we call anyone a hypocrite, liar or loser? ”
In your 8:57 post: “Judging from your spelling, you, on the other hand, probably have a lot of free time on your hands.” The loser part is pretty clear, and since you’re saying in the rest of your post that your antagonist — who again, wasn’t me, as you know since you’ve got the IP logs — couldn’t have done the same job without it taking two years, i inferred hypocrite and liar.
Mr B, you’re awfully thin-skinned for someone who writes a public blog. I said myself, “not that you are doing anything wrong by hiring the job out…” I was simply trying to show that it could be done, faster than you seemed to assume, by someone with no experience — not that you had a moral obligation to do so. I could care less if you do or not. I mean, for cripes’ sake, I even offered gardening advice. Not exactly a wholesale personal attack!
Not to mention I didn’t get personal with my comments as you quickly did with me. FYI, I work at home often, have purposely dialed back my career and earnings to have more time with family and spend plenty of time with my kids. (More, I suspect, though I don’t know, than someone who works by day on Wall Street and blogs in his spare time and on weekends.) Part of my point was that the project doesn’t take the kind of sunup-to-sundown work you seem to be assuming. (As for sticking my wife with the kids, she helped plenty on the landscaping, but thanks for the sexist assumption.)
In any event, go back and re-read my post; ask yourself how hostile it is; and then ask yourself how dare you question my devotion to my children when you never met me. I’ve read this blog pretty much you started it, long enough to know that you’d fly off the handle if anyone made the same accusation of you.
let me reiterate:
we would like to use the backyard THIS summer. We salute Anon 3:22 with his/her young children and the DIY spirit. As Brownstoner mentioned above, we will be planting things. things that grow we hope. however, we want to be in the backyard WITH the children, WITHOUT debris, lead in dirt, shards of glass, etc.
We would really like to continue blogging this process but it would be so much more insightful and enjoyable to everyone, i think, if people can contribute helpful comments rather than engage in a bunch of chest thumping and denigrating. also, in your own self-interest, if you keep doing it, people might begin to suspect a little case of…”methinks thou dost protest too much…”
anon 3:22, I kind’ve have to ask along with brownstoner – who babysat while you toiled?
I am also enjoying the gardening posts. I long for a lovely garden again as I enjoyed in the South. Thank you for sharing Brownstoner family, reading about your work in the garden helps to keep my dream alive.