An Indoor Cat Ventures Outside

Where to start? I guess let me say that we are loving our Maine adventure. We continue to spruce up the house and have a to do list that is a mile long. The biggest projects that we tackled since my last post were converting a teenagers small,Tiffany blue bedroom into a calm, less teenager looking office and having several precariously positioned trees removed from the back yard. 

We had a  visit from friends this weekend and as we were walking to the car on the way to dinner I said, " we spent 3 hours working in the yard today and you can't even tell." I then went on to say, "note to self, when buying a house with a yard like this, be prepared to maintain it". As we were getting settled in the car, I pondered that thought and did a mental groan.  I hate yard work.  My friend Judy once called herself an inside cat. I loved that description and it fits me. I prefer to deal with the tasks associated with being indoors and watch supportively from the relative safety of a window while lawns are mowed or leaves get raked. I came to the frightening realization that the indoor cat was going to have to venture outside if I wanted to prevent our yard from becoming the scourge of the neighborhood.  Sigh...

If you've read this blog in the past, you're probably related to me and therefore my revelation about yard work is nothing new. But do you remember my comments last spring/summer about how fanatical our neighbors were about their gardens? Last year was a gift, we watched with anticipation as each plant revealed itself. I discovered I have peonies, a bleeding heart, azaleas, irises, ornamental trees, tulips, daffodils, a variety of hostas, and tons of lily of the valley in our yard.  We also have leaves. Lots and lots of leaves.  So this year we need to clean things up in hopes of not killing off all the perennials and pissing off the neighbors.

Naturally I didn't take any before pictures but we spent 5 hours cleaning up this area near the street.

I'll admit when we first started raking, I was reluctant to pull anything as I was sure it was a prize plant or ground cover that I didn't recognize. It took about 30 minutes of the thorny vines tangling in my sweatshirt and poking through my new gardening gloves before I started cutting and hacking with reckless abandon.  There were vines growing up into the tree and wrapped around branches. I felt like I had stepped into a scene from Jumanji.  I was unraveling thorn ridden vines from trees and pulling 4 foot pieces out of the poor tree. In front of the white/pink tree is a bush that looked like it had bloomed but it was actually the vine that had wound it's way to the top of the shrub. I've never seen anything like it. I was on a mission to get rid of it. I'm now paying for my earlier enthusiasm but it was worth it. I had a leaf bag full of these vines. The dump is closed on Sunday so I'm a little worried during the night they'll start growing again. They kind of freaked me out...

See that green piney looking thing on the right? Anyone know what it is? Besides ugly? 

Well, after 5 hours, 6 bags of vines and leaves, and 6 bags of mulch later, we had to stop. Actually, I had to stop. My husband kept going and planted a flat of begonias near the back deck. We're limping around but we had a blast today. Looking back on the day, he can't believe we have a rock wall and I can't believe I agreed to go back outside again tomorrow....