Clearing out & hidden paths

After a weekend of hard work we're nearing the end of the clearing out that has to be done on the property around the house. We pulled ivy off the lower roof, bagged about a dozen bags of leaves from around the foundation, dug out two old, long buried paths, and cleared the pool area of overgrowth. Saturday was mostly leaf-bagging and path-clearing.

Back left-hand side of the house

I didn't take any great "before" pictures here, but you can see a large tree growing way too close to the foundation, a line of overgrown shrubs, and a lot of leaves on the ground.

After- a new path

This photo is of a slightly different angle, but it shows the same things. The plant life have been cleared out from the small garden area next to the door to the basement. The large tree is completely gone. The shrubs have been cut back. The leaves are removed. A concrete path that was previously buried under dirt and detritus has been shoveled out and swept off. You can also see in this photo that the last of the awnings has been removed.

New path- another angle

On Sunday, Mark took on the pool area and cleared bit of plant life out from inside the fence. We aren't sure at this point whether or not we will be able to salvage the old pool, but it doesn't need to be covered in vines and trees either way.

overgrown pool area

Here's a "before" image of the pool area. You can see the liner is torn in the pool, and I'm sure there are other things wrong with it, as well. The area is filled with leaves and vines, and multiple trees have grown up through the fence.

I am hesitant to call this an "after" image because there is still so much to be done here, but the concrete has been cleared of leaves and most of the dirt that was on it, and a lot of the plant life has been removed. At one point, I was leaving the pool area and noticed a bit of concrete on the ground, so I started raking and digging out. I ended up uncovering a 5'-or-so brick path leading into the pool.

Old brick path to the pool

While we were cleaning out the area, Mark noticed some movement in the pool and it ended up being an Eastern box turtle. After a quick google search on my phone, I decided that a pool was not the healthiest place for her to be living, so I fashioned a turtle-grabber with a bucket and an old, broken, pool skimmer. We set her out in the yard and she got right to eating snails out of a yucca plant. Probably my favorite part of the weekend.