Sharks. Garden. Cats.

It is finished.

I am not referring to the Sharks, who are also finished. Tonight's game and that game four they played were just plain awful. An embarrassment. They played with no heart, no energy, no sense of urgency. It was as if they expected Anaheim to lay down after losing a couple games. San Jose is a team in serious need of some leadership and guts that changing the coach cannot provide. It's time to remake the roster. They need to get some players who will not wilt under the playoff spotlight, and if that means trading one of their stars like Thornton or Marleau so be it. Joe Thornton has practically been invisible this series. Bring in some players with some grit and some mental toughness. Geez. Sick and tired of each year choking in the playoffs.

And with that, we'll segway into the main gist of this post.



Above, is my backyard. To most of you it is probably nothing special because, well, it is nothing special. But to me, this is the plot of land that I have poured hours of my life into the last four weeks... But before we get to that story, some background information.

Back in the day , when I use to live with my little brother Anthony (like a year ago) I never did any yard work. The only yard work I did was mow the lawn. There was a mutual agreement that he would take care of the backyard and I would mow the lawn. He did a real good job, he planted all sorts of neat little plants, vegetables, and trees in it. He would get up early in the morning to water and tend to his yard, like a good farmer. One year, he grew enough cucumbers and beans to last my family for an entire summer.

But all good things come to an end and when he moved out, I was left to take care of the yard myself. And when I say 'take care of the yard myself', what I really meant was that I didn't do anything. For six months, I don't think I even stepped into the backyard. I left the yard as it was all summer and all winter. Little did I realize that if you don't take care of your yard, it takes care of itself, which means it grows all sorts of crazy weeds. When I eventually stepped out into the yard, I was shocked at how fast the weeds have grown and how tall they were. Weeds all over the place, dead things all over the place. It was not a pretty site.

I put into motion a plan to fix this terrible catastrophe. I even gave it a name, I called it 'Operation Restoration', as in restore the yard. The last four Saturdays I have woken up at 8AM and planted myself in the backyard for the next 9 hours. I weeded. I mowed. I chopped. I dug. I hoed. And when that was all done, I woke up early the next weekend and did it all again. I did this through the rain, through the wind, and through the 100 degrees temperatures which was two weekends ago. Every Saturday night I would feel like death. My back would hurt, my skin would be burned, every part of my body would be sore... But it was worth it. Because that picture you see above, is my finish work of art. I think I pulled out at least a couple hundred pounds of weeds... I wish I had some 'before' pictures so you guys can see the amount of work I did, but I didn't.

Allow me to showoff some of the more interesting plants in the yard.



Artichoke plant. I actually don't like artichokes, so I give them all to my mom. On the right is a baby artichoke plant.

But all is not dandy. I have a huge problem with cats. It seems like when there were weeds, grass and other stuff all over the yard, it was the perfect place for cats to hangout, hide and make more cats with one another. The cats liked the tall weeds where they could hide and play in. But once I pulled all those out, the cats had no place to hide, so now every morning I would see them in the morning just lounging in the dirt. At first I thought it was just one cat, but then one morning I saw two cats, and then just this week, I saw three cats, all just lying there on the grass.



This is really annoying. Not only do these cats crap all over the grass but at night, i can hear them mating. Nothing is as unnerving as in the middle of a silent night, all of a sudden you hear a cat's cry of ecstasy right out my window. It freaks me out. And I hate it when I'm working in the yard and I turn around and I see one of these guys staring at me with their big eyes. That also freaks me out. So I'm wondering how to get rid of these suckers, some suggestions I've received are.

1. Get a dog. Except, I hate dogs.
2. One of my coworker suggest putting radiator fluid all over the backyard, because cats would drink that stuff cause it's sweet. And then they would eventually die from it because it melts their organs. AND, according to Succubiss Chan, killing cats is not illegal! Killing dogs are, but since cats are considered pests, killing them is perfectly okay... Alright!!! I liked that idea except well the thought taking life, even animal life I didn't like... I just couldn't pull myself together to do.

So i did the next best thing, I paid my neighbor's kid $100 to do it. I said, 'Kid. I want you to each night hop over my fence and put radiator fluid everywhere. And then every morning I want you to remove it, and if you just by any chance see any dead cats lying around... well bury it in my backyard somewhere (cause animals make good fertilizer). Whatever happens, don't tell me about it. My hands are clean. If you do this right, i will put $100 in your mailbox.' And now, one week later, the cats seemed to have uhh 'disappeared'

Okay. Just kidding about that. (Obviously). But if anyone has any great ideas about getting rid of cats (humanely, if possible), please leave a comment with your idea.

So yard work is almost 100% done. Maybe a couple more hours next weekend to setup my sprinklers and we should be good for a couple more months. I'm gonna try to be better in maintaining it this year....