The Honeysuckle Wars

We're having a cocktail party Saturday night.  And, in honor of the people coming to my house for what I hope will be a moderately elegant affair (where undoubtedly everyone will stand around in my kitchen as usual), I decided that I needed to face the jungle which is my backyard.  Marc and I sort of have this unspoken pact -- he mows the lawn and edges while responsibility/blame for the state of the flower beds, herb garden, pond, et cetera falls to me.  I've decided he definitely gets the better end of the deal.  I mean all he has to do is go out and push the mower around.  It involves absolutely no thought whatsoever.  He walks blithely around with not a thought in his head about whether or not he's doing it the "right" way.  When the mower cooperates, the grass obligingly submits to his ministrations and voila! he achieves perfection.  His only challenge is that sometimes the mower doesn't work.  We have two mowers now but that's a different story.

I, on the other hand, am waging a war with crabgrass, honeysuckle (of multiple varieties), Virginia creeper, volunteer saplings, thistles, sapling trees and poison ivy.  It seems that every flower bed I have is infested with a different species of invasive plant.  In some places the "good" things have even turned bad...the sweet lamb's ear and variegated leaf ground cover have taken over the pebble walkway to the composters and raised beds at the side of the house.  And someone must be giving the trumpet vine growing outside my bedroom window steroids.  It was looking lovely and then I return from Alaska and I can't walk through the arbor it's growing on.  And, even my little fish pond has a bad case of string algae.

Anyone care to kiss him to see if he's a prince?



Swimmy, Zipper and Max named in tribute to former Mathews family pets (Zipper and Max were both gerbils that Howie killed during his verminating reign of terror.  Here they are in the van on the car ride home.  I held them just like that and drove one-handed.  I did not text and drive while holding the fish.  Even at the stoplights.

 Speaking of the fish pond, sometimes known as the Pond of Doom in memory of the many fishy and amphibious souls that have met untimely deaths there (as well as one small rabbit and yesterday a bird -- seriously,  how does this happen!), it has some new inhabitants.  Three goldfish, the cheapest ones I could find at the pond store, were introduced to our heroic frog who was the pond's sole survivor of last year's dreadful winter. I'd like to say they successfully were introduced but I'm not sure I should use the word "successful."  I carefully transitioned them from the safety of the plastic bag to the pond.  Then, they promptly disappeared beneath the aforementioned string algae into the murky depths.  I'm taking it as a positive sign that I haven't seen them doing the dreaded backstroke.  The bird I found yesterday floating dead in the pond really puzzles me.  I suspect Jewel of playing some role in its demise.

Anyway, I have spent a multitude of hours out there in the last week.  I have discovered that there are still some verifiable herbs in my herb garden notably lavender and chives and I have almost defeated the crabgrass invasion -- one more rain and the ground will be soft enough for me to show it who's boss.  But then there's the poison ivy.  Guess which of us won that battle...scratch scratch.