Reseeding the yard

Last Saturday, I decided to over seed the front yard. Our lawn looks ok when it's really long, but it's not so good if you look closely at it. The lawn is not super thick. I've started to get some weeds coming up out of it, and some crab grass. It's starting to get towards Fall here, the really hot is over, so I figured it was a good time.

I mowed the lawn really short. As short as I could get the mower to go.

After I took a thatch rake to the lawn, you could really see how bad things were. Here is the worst patch.

Most of the lawn looks pock marked. If you look very carefully, and stare at it long enough, it starts to look like a greenish version of the face of the moon...

It's kind of hard to see the scope of the thatch that came up out of the lawn, even after mowing super short. Between the mowing and the raking, I overfilled our green yard waste can.

After I got done, I threw seed down on the lawn, and roped the thing off. I figured I needed the rope to keep the mailman off. I think it also keeps the neighbor cat off, but maybe nothing else. When I was putting the 1x2 posts in to hang the rope, I tried to get one in over in the corner of the porch, by the little pine tree in the picture. I was using a rubber mallet to pound it in, and it started bouncing on something. I went and got a sledgehammer, and after one hit, the post shattered into 25 pieces at the bottom of it. At first I thought that I didn't know my own strength, but I started looking, and there was a knot at the bottom of the piece of wood. The rope is tied off to the pine tree.

I should know in a week or so how it went, if we can get the new seed growing before all the leaves fall off the tree. Stay tuned in a week or two for another update.

Also, it is now Tuesday, and my arms are still tired from using the thatch rake. Not something I would want to do for a career... Also, it started pouring down rain while I was trying to finish. That was kind of nice, because I was hot and tired by that point.