Laboring for Labor Day

My father has agreed that they need help. It took him awhile to reply to my email proposing the help, but he is in favor of it. The downside, he thinks the front yard has to be done before March. So my sister and I are giving up our Labor Day weekend to make the front yard look less ghetto. When I was there a couple of weeks ago for my reunion (which I really should post about), there was a smashed mailbox in the yard. I say to my father, 'dad, why is there a smashed mailbox in the front yard?' His reply, 'because I hit it with a trailer.' Not the response I was hoping for. Or looking for really. What I was really asking is why is there a smashed mailbox in the front yard and not in the trash. Much of the front yard is like this. SO, instead of going to Alabama to get a new tattoo (Alabama certifies or licenses or something their tattoo artists so that I don't have to wait the 1 year to donate blood per the blood bank's rules), my sister, my niece and I are going to AZ to spend 3 or 4 (depending on if I can get Tuesday off) cleaning up my parents' front yard and maybe building a fence. We have not broached this subject with my mother. My father is worried about that. My sister is handling that aspect since I handled my dad. We're still going to be going in March, this just makes their neighbors hate them a little less. (Since there is about 3 with for sale signs in front of their homes I'm kind of surprised they haven't snuck in in the night and hauled away all the unsightly junk).

I've been doing some research on what we could do with the front yard once we've got all the junk and dead plants out and it seems like a clover yard is an easy, low maintenance, not requiring mowing way to go. We'll see if there's time to put that down once we get the rest taken care of. I'm not sure if I have to do stump removal (which I will have to google) if I'll be able to get the lawn clover seeded. But they need SOMETHING and most of the cacti are dead. (Which will be so fun to remove.)