The weather forecast was really sketchy this weekend so we didn’t get everything we wanted done…but we did make some progress. We did a little running around Saturday morning, trying to get a few things to finish up projects. That became harder than expected when we couldn’t find any 1 inch PVC piping at Hagebau. We’re going to have to check a few more home improvement stores and see what’s up but if we can’t find that, we’re going to have to rethink our raised bed tunnels a bit.

Just as we were getting home, the sun started to come out and it was a cool but nice afternoon. When we got started on the courtyard wall, it looked like this. The vines and climbing roses were growing on a trellis of chain link fencing. Down by the roses it was fairly easy to start cutting everything growing off of the wall first and then unscrew the trellis frames. We used wire cutters to cut the fencing in sections and then remove it from the wall.

courtyard vines 01

As we got down to the other part of the wall where the psycho vine was growing, there was nothing left to cut off. Most of the vine was growing behind and through the fencing so we had to cut through the vines as well as the fencing, bringing everything down together in huge pieces. It would have been impossible to do it any other way. This is what the back of the fencing looks like when we took it down. The vines are at least three inches thick and just packed together. I’m trying to figure out a way to save some of this and force it to grow as huge wreathes. When it dies, it’s got the consitency of grapevines. I guess I could put it in a pot with some sort of wire frame for it to grow around. Anyone tried something like this?

courtyard vines 03

Unfortunately a lot of the screws fought us and had to be pried from the all. We still don’t have a pry bar here although we could have used one numerous times. Next time we’re at a home improvement store we’re finally going to pick one up. We broke the head off one hammer and our huge wrecking ax in the process, and then finally has to resort to using brute force to get the screws out of the wall.

The very last piece was a huge one and was rather difficult to get down because the psycho vines were still attached at the top, growing into the hay loft and through the gutter. Quite a bit of tugging and pulling was required but thankfully the stuff isn’t heavy.

courtyard vines 04

Needless to say all the tugging, holding huge drills and climbing up and down the ladder took a toll on us. I’m sure Stefan is happy to be taking things a little easier today. He wasn’t really looking forward to getting up on the roof just yet.

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We’ve got everything piled up in the courtyard for now. Looks like we won’t be going to the trouble of bundling all this up for the free garden trash pickup but will get a regular trash container instead. We’ve always got stuff to throw away around here and you pay by the kilo anyway so if we don’t fill it up, it’s ok too. That wasn’t exactly in our plans but anything that reduces clutter around here is a good thing.

courtyard vines 06

The “finished” product is a bit scary. We still have to get up on the roof and get the rest of the vines, but at least they won’t start growing. And the plants in the ground have to be dealt with also. The roses will have a whole lot of growing to accomplish before they are as beautiful as before, but we had to take drastic measures to get them full at the bottom again too. A crumbling bare wall with the huge rose stalk going up just wasn’t cutting it.

The wall will need to be patched in a few places which we could do ourselves but since our neighbor did the other job so cheaply, we’re probably going to ask him to do this also. It’s not something we find fun and we have a lot of other things to do here already. But when that is done we can paint this building and decorate it with more of the interesting old farm equipment we have around here…and then it will be all ready for us to get going on the outdoor kitchen.

courtyard vines 07 After

Ayla was fulfilling her helping duties by chewing on some of the vines we’d pulled down, breaking them up in to smaller pieces. Who would ask for a better helper? Almost looks like she got herself a deer though in this photo. 🙂

courtyard vines 02 Ayla helps