Victory over the IVY!!!

Need I say more??  Check out what has grown instead of the ivy:

This is taken off the deck facing west.  This is what used to be completely ivy: 100%.  Now, it is grass that is really trying hard to take over.  There are still vines lurking, but there are very very few leaves on the ivy.  YES!!!  You can see our rather weird flowerbed that is kinda stuck in the middle of everything.  Someday we will probably move that and get some actual landscaping going, but for now, just having grass is great.  There is little grass to the north of the deck; it’s probably just too shady, plus the worst water-shed problem starts right there so, that may never have good grass.  Hard to say.

This is the same location, but this is from standing on the ground facing north.  It shows the next project we have: cleaning out that pile of junk.  It is a huge pile of branches and sticks and stuff that has accumulated from cutting down lots of trees and shrubs and so forth.  It was there because we thought maybe we would use it to burn in the outdoor fire, but it’s just so small and junky.  So we cleaned out the wood that was salvageable and the rest is just going to have to go into bins, a bit at a time every week, to put out for the trash.  I hope they take it.  David said he would put a swing up there once it is gone!!  yay!

This is a photo of the south side of the house where we did have a great deal of difficulty growing grass.  There were two or three kinds of ivy in there, plus a lot of rocks.  The rocks are still there for the most part, but the ivy is mostly gone.  There is still a bit of trouble there getting grass to grow; it’s really spotty.  BUT, it looks way better than it did, doesn’t it?  We’ve been watering it like crazy.

This is our next project.  This is the pipe that takes all the evestrough water off our house and the neighbours’ house.  It used to have a huge hole in it and become a gyser in the rain.  David fixed the hole, we think, but it still somehow refuses to stay buried.  It insists on shedding any dirt that we put on top of it.  Plus, there is still a trench that leads from it to the lowest point of the yard, which is really not so attractive.  You can really see that in the previous photo.

Our final most important project is shown in this photo.  We have really bad ant problems.  They actually manage to get in the house.  Can you see the huge ant hill?  We poured gas on them quite a few times last summer, but they came back.  They actually were really sneaky because that isn’t their only hill.  Of the other two, one is in its old spot, but the new one is in the flower bed.  No gas going in there and not sure if anything will.  Any thoughts?

Finally, we had no work to do other than house things today, so that provided some much-needed time for silliness.

Believe it or not, it’s the end of the alphabet song.  Apparently it comes complete with spirit fingers at the end.  So that’s all from here.  Not much, but that makes a change from working and working and working.  We managed to get through Easter and a visit to MN and a visit here from all the grandparents and an uncle, not to mention two concerts and some other work.  This weekend we are just relaxing and working around the house.  Maybe we will start the fireplace.