31 July 2009

off through the new day's mist I run


What's that? you ask?

That. Is a Yard Monster.

Tree and I pulled it from its nest in the pine trees along the side of our back yard with the weird vampire neighbors (the other side has the cool neighbors who invited us to their cookout on the 4th of July). Actually, I'm not 100% sure they are vampires, but since I've yet to see any of them in the 8 months that we've lived here, I can only assume. I do know they own a small dog, though, who is sometimes out on their deck, so I guess they must not be the dog-eating kind. Unless the dog is the only one living there. In that case, bravo on teaching yourself to drive to the store to get dog food. Unless the dog ate the neighbors. Yikes...

Getting off topic. So the Yard Monster was a huge snarly viney grapey thing that was strangling like 4 trees to death. Plus it was a terrible eyesore. Tree brought home some pruning shears and we hacked and yanked and untangled and cursed for the better part of two afternoons - and there's still some left. Unfortunately, the previous occupants of our house (technically still the current owners as we are mere renters) never tried to cut the thing back. And obviously the next-door vampires/dog didn't do it either. In fact, the type of fence that separates that section of our yards (there are two different kinds of fencing on that side... sigh...) is such that I suspect the wild grape debacle was no accident.

But that part of the yard is definately coming along. We're going to pick up some blueberry bushes tomorrow and get them planted hopefully tomorrow afternoon, if the weather is ok. It's been raining something awful lately. One of our tomato plants (we only had 3) was killed in the vicious storm we had the other night. Luckily everything else was unharmed. The squash/zucchini/pepper plants are all doing fine, giving us a pretty decent return. Again, we didn't plant much because it's only the two of us here and this was our first garden, but I'm impressed! And we have so many great ideas for next year. The blueberry bushes we're planting tomorrow won't give us much, if anything, this season, but it will be nice to have berries next year. And they'll be covering up the nakedness created when we took out all the wild grape vines - the vampires' yard is overgrown, filled with junk, and just horrible, and I'd rather not have to look at it.

That was kind of snobby. :P

Well, that's pretty much it for now. Two days left of leave, then back to work. More stuff to do outside before I'm satisfied. We've got the cookout to plan for, and I know it's early, but I'm already gearing up for Halloween. And there are a whole list of recipes I want to try while we can take advantage of these fresh summer vegetables. Busy busy busy.

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Side note: Tree was featured on My Sleeping Husband! (shhhh, he doesn't know) Go on over and take a peek.

"so seek the wolf in thyself..."

- Metallica "Of Wolf and Man" -

5 comments:

bodoba said...

I have terrible lawn neighbours too. They drive me nuts! Spend all this money on guitars, amps, etc. and can't find any money to buy a lawn mower so he mows once a month!

I kinda have to laugh though...I was imagining a kid book when I heard "Tree and the Lawn Monster"

Malibu Niki said...

It doesn't look so menacing in the photo, but it's taller than I am!

Are you in military housing? And I feel your pain about the guitars... we have a "band" living across the street.

bodoba said...

Yeah I'm on base housing, they've had a few noise disturbances called in on them so they've quieted down a bit.

I had to google rag rugs. It's pretty easy if you know some basic crochet skills. Normally their made out of old T shirts. I've never made one before so it's kinda new to me too but from what I've read about it, they're really easy and fun and of course cheap.

Angel said...

OMG - when you were telling me about the wild grapes I thought there were a few vines...that truly IS a monster. Hazzah to you & Tree for tackling it!

And that picture of Tree with Monkey is fucking amazing.

Malibu Niki said...

Bodoba,

Me, crochet? Haha! I did some Googling and found a pretty easy (hopefully) braiding-only variation. It just takes some minor sewing at the end, but I (think I) can manage.

Angel,

We dismantled some more of it today - firewood! And we got 4 out of 7 blueberry bushes in the ground, but more on that tomorrow.

Glad you liked Tree's internet debut. I'm going to email the link around, haha!