The Great Outdoors Ongoing Never-ending Project; "Kyle XY"; YouTube

Last time I was talking about the middle section of the back yard. From left to right, there are a cedar tree, oak, pecan, another cedar and a cypress. Sometime ago, I'd attacked the leftmost cedar and gotten rid of all the limbs for the bottom eight feet.

And I'd done something similar to the pecan. At the moment, I'm blank on what I did to the oak.

One evening, I took a ladder and the reciprocating saw and cleared limbs on the cedar and cypress as high as I could. Without cutting myself. When you positioned with the saw above you, it is difficult to control.

Of course, once you've done this, you then have a huge pile of limbs. I started at the trunk end and cut the limbs into smaller and smaller sections. However, the reciprocating saw does not work well with limbs that fairly small; it more or less just flays them around. Anyway, I spent a couple of hours on it and didn't feel like I'd gotten very far.

Next day, an idea came to mind. Why not cut the outer part of the limbs down to three-or-four-foot sections, then place then upright in a garbage container. That way, the real work is in the slicing of the trunk end limbs, which can then go into a separate container. Turned out to be a great idea. I was able to finish about 30-40 limbs in around two hours.

I then started the process of raking across where I'd been. If I can do this at least once, I think it will make it much easier to clean in the future.

Over the weekend, I flattened out the soil on the north side of the car port. And I was able to place a border from the front to the back of the carport. No without a lot of chopping and digging. Then I filled the bed with more mulch. I'm sure I've bought around 20 bags. And I can tell I need to buy another couple for the bed under the front windows. When it rains the mulch at the back is pushed to the front.

Whenever I had a chance, I would rake some more in the bag and place the debris in a garbage bag. I tried to keep the weight of the bags to a sensible level. One, because if the bag is too heavy, it's a killer to drag to the street. Two, if I have trouble lugging it to the street, the poor garbage guys have then got to hoist it into the back of the garbage truck. So yesterday, garbage buy, the guys dumped the containers and totally ignored all the bags.

Several weeks ago, I was out front when the garbage truck arrived. One of the workers yelled, "Man! You're killing me with all those bags." It is a messy, nasty job, and one I certainly would not want, so I can sympathize.

Monday as I was raking along the north property line, I stumbled into a next of yellow jackets and ended up with bites to my right side and under my chin. (Several weeks ago, I did the same thing and had a bite to one ankle. And it took four or five days for the itch to go away. So I checked the web and was told to put ice on the bite as soon as possible.) I stopped immediately and went inside for ice. But even then, my side bothered me all afternoon. I finally resorted to a couple of Darvocet.

It has been very hot for the last week, so I've been trying to figure our a decent time to cut the front yard. Yesterday morning, the cats woke me at 6, so by around 6:30 I was out in the yard with mower, face mask, hat and gloves. It took about 45 minutes, but it seemed more difficult than usual. Even though I have the mower set on the highest grass setting. Maybe it was because, it had not been cut in two weeks.

I went back to bed, go up around noon, went out to lunch, filled up the car with petrol. (Why the fuck does it cost $26 for 9 gallons of gas? That's outrageous! What are our august leaders in Washington trying to do about this. Bush is too busy vetoing the stem-cell bill because he doesn't believe in "murder." His first veto by the way. What does he think is happening in Iraq? The murder of the innocent by American troops. OK! Sorry! We little tirade. Read Does Anyone Care by Patti Davis, daughter of Nancy and Ronald Reagan.)

After lunch, I brought in the garbage containers, trimmed the walk and drive, moved the garbage bags and mowed that section, and culled out some of the dead limbs from the north side hedge, cleaned off the drive with the hose. By then I felt like it was time to quit.

I'm thinking of planting bamboo along the north side. There is hedge in some section, but there are other parts that are empty.

The fourth episode of "Kyle XY" was on Monday night. At this point, we don't know if Kyle is from the future, an alien, a clone, or what. and in a way, I've been less interested in that than I am in watching how he discovers and deals with situations.

In the first episode, he urinated on himself, with no idea of why. In this episode, he has an erection. Again, of course, he has no idea what that means. The father explains that its a normal response. Josh, the 14-year-old, he tried to think of zits and old people to prevent from having one. Kyle says he'll start thinking of grapefruit.

Josh is certainly into porn magazines. And he even recommends one for Kyle.

There's a big party Friday night, and the daughter Lori has decided to have sex with her boyfriend, Declan. It shows her packing a condom into her bag. Which they indeed do in the bushes. She comes out looking less than impressed, and Declan says, "It gets better."

Earlier Josh had met up with a girl his age from a Catholic school. At the party, she entices Josh to go skinny dipping in the hot tub. The parents of the host show up and demand they get out immediately. Josh demurs for fairly obvious reasons. They insist, so finally he jumps out yelling, "Zits, old people, grapefruit!"

Kyle has painted the girl next door and hopes she will show up. Which she does with boy friend. Poor Kyle is crushed, because nothing has prepared him for this type of emotion.

The episode managed to handle a batch of sensitive issues without condemnation and with considerable humor. Matt Dallas who plays Kyle is splendid. He can look curious, baffled and slightly amused all at once. But the really great moments are to watch him when he figures out something.

There's no doubt about it, I've become a YouTube addict. There is such a weird mix of videos. I came across a video of Al Stewart of "Year of the Cat" from 1991 with Tori Amos on piano. A hysterical piece about the break-up between a very possessive guy and his girl friend - "Phone Tag."

Several versions of Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon" that are heart breaking. And should be required viewing by those in power in Washington.

Marlene Dietrich singing 'La Vie en Rose' live at the Edison Award -Holland - 1963.

I think I've already mentioned the Nicole Kidman two-minute film for Chanel. I'm hard pressed to know when and where this would be shown. It is such a thing of beauty. Of course, it should be since it cost 18 million pounds - $22 million US dollars!

A video of violence in the Russian army. Terrifying! And the officers are very nonchalant, almost boasting of what they're doing. Proud to have it on tape. Do psychotic think they can find a socially acceptable way to vent their frustration by becoming soldiers? Or corporate vice presidents?Or President of the US?

PAX!