This guys yard is something to behold. It is not the worst yard in the world, only the worst one in this neighborhood, by far. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I've included four thousand words worth. Note the new Everbrown tree in the first picture just in front of the Big screen TV's. It used to be a cedar.
Here lives the biggest human pack rat that has ever existed. He saves everything, until the city makes him throw some of it away. Most of it ends up stacked in piles around his back yard since I'm sure his house is already bursting at the seems from garbage. Ever wonder what happens to that pile of smashed shipping palates that some companies pile up outside their yard and label 'Free Firewood'? It ends up in Kookooboys back yard. Let me give you a couple examples of just how much of a pack rat he is:
The first summer after I moved in, before I had committed any perceived acts of aggression, I told JD9 that the lovely snow fence separating our yards was really unacceptable and that the following Saturday I was going to get some lumber and build a proper picket fence. So that Saturday, him and I were taking down his snow fence. It was propped up with old pieces of re-bar, a couple pieces of pipe, a stick or two - whatever he had laying around when he built it. So I started on one end and him on the other. When we met, somewhat past the middle, he was horrified to see that I was just cutting the 5 inch pieces of wire that had held it all together and throwing them in the garbage! He dug the now 2 1/2'' pieces out of the garbage, wrapped them up nicely and put them in an old paper bag he had been putting the longer pieces in. These, he had carefully unwrapped from the fence and tucked them away in his bag. This explained why I seemed to be about four times faster at disassembly than him. I got a peek inside the bag and along with the wire were a few dozen bent nails of various sizes. When we finished the disassembly, he filed the bag away for later use, along with the remains of what was once a red slat snow fence.
Later that year, we decided to have a yard sale. At the end of the day, I threw the most useless junk on a truck for a trip to the dump the next day. He came over and grabbed a bunch of it, some of it big stuff, off the truck and offered me a couple dollars. Most of it found a place to decompose in his back yard. One of the items was a tricycle my 20 year old daughter used when she was about three. I know what your thinking - why did I still have it after all those years? Hey, we're all a bit guilty of being a pack rat. This guy is a packrats pack rat. The bike was still rusting away in his back yard a couple years ago. I think it assisted in the garbage can incident. He must have finally decided not to have any kids.
The small section of his yard between our houses gets absolutely no upkeep what-so-ever. The weeds were as tall as the fence and gone to seed when the city finally made him do something. He got out his trusty weed whipper, which he cuts his entire yard with when the city makes him, and cut most of it down with the exception of a couple dozen fine examples of thistle. He cut around them all summer. By 'All summer', I mean the two or three more times the city got on his case.
In one of the pictures above, you can see two lumps in his front yard. These are piles of gravel he trucked in, one by one, in a five gallon pale. This took him a few days. He would get in his van and be gone for about twenty minutes. Each time he returned, he would have a can of this gravel. He must have made twenty trips to wherever he was stealing the stuff. He then proceeded to spread it all over his yard. Then he found the sidewalk blocks you see stacked up in the picture. It was at this point that it was made painfully clear to him that he could not have a driveway there unless he made the proper applications. So he raked the gravel up into two piles and there it sits.
Kookooboy MacGyver is a master of home repair and maintenance. His finely painted fence was in need of some minor repairs at some point as it was falling down. So he did what no experienced 'Handy-Man' would ever think of doing. He tied a rag to it and fastened the other end firmly to a chunk of tree driven into the ground. For those of you not familiar with advanced fence maintenance techniques, see the picture below.
This is without a doubt some of his finest work.
(May 2004: He took this down)
Update: I suspect the powers that be have been on Kookooboys case again. He has been plugging up the garbage bins the last few days. As you can see from the pictures below, he has made some major changes.
Yard before any 'Clean Up' Yard after 'Clean Up' Yard after more 'Clean-Up'
Is it getting better or am I taking pictures backwards? I wonder if garbage just grows out of his dirt. I almost wish he would stop cleaning up. He doesn't have much room for any more 'Clean Up'. I suspect Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Erhart are in the shed but that's just a speculation. Amelia's airplane appears to have crashed in the yard.
Kookooboy was in on the ground floor with Satellite technology as witness this monster dish.
This is one of the most prominent things in his back yard. It rises majestically above the heap of crap and stands as an icon of his folly. I bet he still owns and operates an 8 track player, to. It's also the most well built thing in his yard. He obviously contracted out the job as it is mounted on an eight foot cement pillar. I once asked him if he was involved in the 'S.E.T.I.' program. His response was the equivalent of 'Duh......'.
July 1, 2004: A new record has been reached. His crop has officially peeked out above last years. There will be lots of wheat for winter in his world. The tree is still dead and we have a new dead tree in the making.
I really live in this fantasy world where anger is so prevalent and common sense is forgotten.
May 20, 2005: I wonder what this is supposed to be? It showed up a couple days ago.
June 17, 2005: This spring has seen some very good growing weather and, needless to say, Numbnuts has done nothing to his yard in the way of maintenance until a day or two ago. It was getting pretty bad and he needed a little prodding to get things going. He had a little trouble with one area. The part immediately beside the artsy-fartsy fence was a little awkward to cut.
Before After
It turns out, the fix to shore up artsy-fartsy got in his way a bit. He used a real lawn mower to cut the lawn, but because the sticks holding up the fence and the creosote soaked landscape ties around the dying trees created a maze, he had a hard time getting the lawn mower into the required area. It was a little scary to watch, actually. He threw caution to the wind and actually picked up a running gas powered lawn mower and lowered it onto the grass to cut it. I had visions of severed fingers being strewn across the area. His weed whipper must be in the shop, as even he must realize that would have been a better way to do it. Ever watch someone work a power tool in a very dangerous way? It's unnerving.
And, as usual, the entire area is now awash in very long grass clippings. Must have overloaded the 'Mulch' function of the mower. This also produced, as one would expect, a real shitty job of it.
JD9's Fine Yard The Auxiliary Driveway The Transit System
My Dangerous Barbecue My Faulty Parking New Fence New Trees
The Garbage Can Incident How 'Koo-Koo Boy' was Coined The Seniors Complex
Previous Owners Miscellaneous Stories about Koo-Koo Boy
Updates & New Adventures The Manhole Opinions?