After:
It was a lot of waiting and letter writing, but it's done. I no longer have 400 square yards of dead grass (not shown). The lawn has been removed and the overgrown bushes have been trimmed back. I'm surprised how much better things look without those bushes being gigantic and in the way. The new plants will take time to mature, but they should fill in the space a little bit more.
The landscaper came in and basically did it one day. He had to come back the next morning because I was on campus and couldn't let him into the garage to test and program the timer. What's really amusing (or frustrating, depending on how you want to view it) is that the HOA took about sixty times as long to approve the work than the work itself took. For such a small thing, they sure put up a huge fuss. But I achieved total victory by getting it done while managing to avoid all fines associated to the dead grass (and I didn't even have to attend the hearing that they threatened me with).
All of this finished just in time for classes to start on Monday. My textbook won't arrive from the print shop until Tuesday, so we're having to print up the first few sections for our students. Year three of teaching begins in two days. For some unknown reason, I feel less prepared than usual. Hopefully, I won't wake up Monday morning to discover that I've completely forgotten something.
