An Early Reward for Working in the Yard

Well, I started grubbing up the poison ivy. What a pain in the ASS. Some of those roots are as thick as your arm.

Here's the thing. We had a huge pine removed in March before it decided to fall on the house in a storm. Too many branches had fallen during the ice storm last winter and it was a dead tree walking. It was almost 2 grand and took a bucket truck, 150 crane, chipper truck and a log truck over two days to get it out around the power lines and taken away. Did I mention is was HUGE?

Well there was a poison ivy vine growing up it for a long time, LONG TIME. I had hoped being cut at the ground before the ground thawed would kill it, no such luck. All it's roots decided to send out little runners last week. So while there's suddenly a whole lot of poison ivy in the yard where I want to put the last two raised beds, they're all connected so you just dig and follow the roots back to the tree stump. I got like a third of it done in a couple hours today, tomorrow I'll have helpers and we'll finish up quick. The good part is it's fairly contained and when you get rid of the roots you get rid of the poison ivy for good. Any little bits of root we miss can be easily pulled if they decide to sprout but there won't be a massive infestation again.

After I went through decontamination (a shower, washed clothes and tools) and had some lunch I did some propagating. Someone hubby works with dug up a bit, quite a bit, of spearmint from her garden for us. I got 13 good planted cuttings from it and I had some sprigs leftover that were just lovely so a decided to treat myself to a little gardening reward, mojitos. Hubby's working tonight so it's just me, the tv, and a couple delicious cocktails. Sweet reward!