The traditional Taking Down of the Outside Lights is done, and I bagged all the old dead solar walkway lights, the half-dead net lights, and the disintegrating plant pot that’s been sitting outside our door and trashed everything. Which makes me feel virtuous and productive until I take a good look at the yards front and back and realize how much work I’m gonna have to do out there in the next few months before Spring starts with a vengeance.

Mulch. We are in desperate need of mulch in all of our flower beds, at least eighteen bags’ worth, and Muggins here will be the one who will be hauling it back from Home Depot and spreading it (yes, we have a lawn service but things like mulch spreading costs extra and we don’t have the spare cash for that right now).

Trimming the lantana. Assuming that it survives our brief freeze last month I need to trim back the T/r/i/f/f/i/d/s/ lantana in the two back yard flower beds and hope that they behave come spring.

The back yard proper. We have lost a ton of dirt in the far right corner of the yard due to subsidence and we need to lay down more soil if we want to have a hope in hell of grass this year. I’m estimating at least ten bags of dirt need to be spread, maybe more, plus grass seed. Once again, I will be strapping on my braces and singing hosannas to my knee surgeon for the ability to do this work.

The old tree bed. We have a round brick enclosure out front that used to surround the live oak that we had taken down a couple of years ago. We never had the stump pulled and I dumped a few bags of dirt and mulch in there to cover it up but that was about it. What I’d like to do this year is install the sundial I bought last year on the stump, add another couple bags of dirt and mulch, and plant some sort of light-loving low flowers that can spill over the walls. Need to muse on this some more.