25 October 2008

adventure and excitement?

Well, it could be considered that.  

I declared war on back-yard-invading plants, for the first time in quite a while.  My primary goal was the blackberries, which had reclaimed a lot of territory along the back fence since I ripped them from the ground & installed the fence in 2003.  I did some fine damage to their plans today & piled plenty of debris into the recycle bin, then took a break.  I noted another task that was probably more important, and more difficult: the neighbor's bamboo had begun to sprout about 5 feet into my property, and just below a fine viburnum.  After my break I grabbed shovel, loppers and a hatchet and got to work on the new foe.  As the day waned I was exhausted but satisfied, having ripped out many tendrils beneath the surface and pushed all that I found back to the property line.  Several of the roots were over three feet long, and one massive one was closer to eight feet!  I am sure that somewhere beneath my plant, enough root remains to trouble me again - but for now I claim victory in this first skirmish!  

But oh boy do I ache...