What I've been doing instead of blogging ... (pics)

I can't believe it's been like two weeks since my last post. I think that with the onset of summer weather, my brain has checked out for the duration. Garage sales are top priority now that my husband's done with teaching, and I've spent so much time outside it's sickening.

It all started when I was mowing the lawn one day. I've been eyeing that Neglected Flower Bed for over a year, and gradually advanced over to it with the lawn mower. Just a clip here, a nudge there. Before I knew it, 75 percent of it was gone. What a liberating feeling.

The Neglected Flower Bed started out as a giant kidney-shaped monstrosity in our back yard that literally took up most of our lawn space. Together with Neglected Flower Bed #2, we had a strip about 6 feet wide in the middle and literally a six-foot wide bed around the entire back and sides of the garage. My poor son lamented that he missed our old house because of the yard. I reflected back on the poor lazy-#*% loser who used to live here and thought, Yeah, once you start a job you should really finish it, ya know? Instead of leaving it for the next guy.

Something more painful than childbirth:
digging out 10+ years of someone
else's crap.

Over the year my husband has dug up more invasive, ugly-looking perennials that I can think of. Entire beds of pachysandra, the most widespread crap ever. In fact, Neglected Flower Bed #1 and #2 had probably the top three invasive perennials - vinca, pachysandra and Solomon's Seal, all of which I see at roadside plant sales and think, "I want to pay someone to get rid of this stuff, not buy more of it!" My father-in-law thought we should leave it and that it looked nice; I wanted to hit him over the head with the shovel and hide the body in the weeds, but decided that would be wildly inappropriate. (After being 7 months pregnant and moody that one summer and letting him talk me into planting ugly evergreens, which I hate, never again am I letting him give me gardening advice.)

So, back to the mower. The stuff reminded me of - sorry, it's disgusting! - untrimmed pubic hair, and I could finally stand it no longer. I have yet to spray RoundUp or anything similar, and was under the insane impression that digging up clumps of carpet-like roots would somehow do the trick. After a good rain, the ground is nice and soft, but those roots are still there, waiting underneath the surface to sprout once again and choke the life out of my new plants. And those trees there? The big ones are ancient pines; the smaller ones with lots of leaves are, I'm pretty sure, weeds that have gone to seed. Lovely, no? That other one in the middle I'm hoping is not a walnut, which are notorious for killing just about anything planted next to them. (Well, not entirely; obviously vinca thrive next to them!)

Two years ago: The Yard from Hell. Pachysandra to the
left of me; vinca major to the right...here I am, placing
an order for 10 gallons of RoundUp. 

I dug up an old picture from two years ago when we moved in: you can see the craziness and major weed trees and other unidentifiable ugliness going on in our midst. After looking at this photo, I'd forgotten just how heinous it looked. The picture's kind of dark, but I think you get the idea.

Ironically the campus that we live on decided the front corner and one side of the house looked bad, so they hired a landscaper to take care of it, but decided to leave this hot mess for us. WTH?!

And now ...

Sorry for the awful window screen in the way... You can barely see an outline of where the Neglected Flower Bed #1 and #2 used to be. It looks like we dug up a swimming pool or something. The brown spot in the bottom right corner is where I'm currently digging. But at least you can see - and get to - our garage now. Who knew there was a nice little brick and stone path under 20 years of crap?

So that's where I've been...just to prove to myself that I do have other interests besides birth. :D