Brush Pile

 In an effort to do squirrel abatement I cut branches off the linden tree by my back deck. I work on keeping the trees trimmed back most of the time, but this year I did the trimming with greater enthusiasm.  I piled up the branches on the patio by the basement door. They made quite a brush pile. I like to keep them out of the way of my mowing people.  I also like to let the branches dry.

I really don't use the backyard much.  The only direct access is through the basement.  My back deck is a balcony. Usually to get to the backyard, I walk around the side yard.  I don't use my backyard much.  I don't even have a place to sit down back there. My grandson is digging a hole with enthusiasm in the backyard when he comes over, but it fills in between his visits.

But, a friend suggested meeting for lunch on my back patio in a couple of weeks.  She didn't know that my patio is now and is usually stacked with brush.  I could have said, "No, I can't have you on my patio."  But, then we would have had lunch on my deck, overlooking the patio and its brush pile.

It isn't like I planned to keep the brush pile.  I planned to snip snap that brush, bag it, and be rid of it.  I just hadn't gotten around to it yet.  So, this past weekend, I spent an afternoon cutting up sticks and bagging them.  They filled 4 yard waste bags.  But, the back patio looked a lot better.  I also put some chicken wire around the blackberry bush.  I hope to discourage the rabbits.

It looks so good, that I may try to do something to improve the backyard a bit. I really would like to fence it for the imaginary dog, or just because most of my neighbors have fenced their adjacent yards.  The mismatched fencing looks like a hodgepodge.  If I decorated the patio a bit, maybe it wouldn't be so tempting to make it a brush pile.