Battle of the Vines continued

So before I get to the continuing action-packed adventure of the vines, let me tell you what else has been going on. The gigantic flowerpot the former residents left in the middle of the flowerbed has been used as you can see. The hibiscus tree is quite nice, I think. The petunias at the bottom are not quite flowering; they were smashed by hail before I bought them. But they’ll come around.

I know you have been wondering what Jan Simeon does all day while I am warring with plants. Well, here he is, and this is what he pretty much does the whole time. He sleeps or talks to the trees and gives me encouragement in my strife. He just kind of hangs out. He likes it. Oh and by the way, he had a doctor appointment yesterday and he weighs 11 pounds 7 ounces!!! My gosh!!! He has almost doubled his birth weight in 2 months! However, they say he has only grown an inch (I think they are wrong) which puts him in only the 10th percentile for height (90% of kids being taller than he). Sigh. David is more convinced than ever that he is not his child (ha ha) because Jan is so much like a Baxter. However, he is all healthy and jolly and smart, I am told. This being all new to me, I wouldn’t know smart unless he started talking now. But I guess the degrees of alertness/tracking and head/leg control are signs of smarty. So that’s good.

This is the only nice thing the former residents did, other than move out. There are loads of these tiger lilies in a plot in the back yard. They are really nice, I think.

So here we get to the crux of the matter, “crux” from “Crucifixus,” I believe (not sure) and this is exactly what I think should be done to all English ivy. The irony of my life is that in the “flowerbed” below, although it is on the south side of the house, there is no sun, so the ivy is the only thing that will really grow. Except for one other cross to bear (to stick with the theme), and that is the millions of maple seedling. Can you see that some of these things are not like the others? And I’m not sure if you can tell how many there are. Some might scoff and say, oh they won’t get very big, don’t worry about it. Can I just point you to the north side of my house where there are two fairly sizable “seedlings?” Or the northwest corner where there is an oak “seedling” that I might have to use the Sawzall on? (Being far too large for cutters and since we don’t own a chainsaw, much to D’s chagrin.) So the irony, to get back to my point, is that on the south side of the house, I have to preserve the ivy while ripping out the seedlings! This galls me to no end. However, the ivy is being disciplined and tamed because I am raking the 5 years of matted leaves out of it which rips out any unwisely weak vines. Survival of the fittest around here, I tell ya.

So in addition to raking my brains out, or at the very least my arm muscles, I took this photo of what D has done with his brand new pressure washer! He is pretty excited. This is a section of driveway that he washed. Looks quite different doesn’t it?

I also took a photo of David after sanding the drywall. He was wearing a mask if you can believe.

And now since a certain youngun has demanded to be held, I am reduced to typing with one hand, thus I must stop.