Our house sits on .48 acres with several mature trees. In the building of the house, a large portion of the yard was dug up, naturally. These things I knew of. What I wasn’t expecting was the massive network of roots throughout the yard for a shrub that will not die. It’s everywhere, in some places with tree-size roots.

And I’ve been killing it with little hand pruners.

At this point, I think I have about 90% of the above ground shoots taken care of. However, there are several trunks of bushes that my little pruners couldn’t handle. For those we’ll have to get a hand saw.

The thing to remember is, the trunks of these bushes are everywhere. Apparently the movers trimmed a lot of larger shrubs to the ground when they built the house/put it on the market. However, they certainly didn’t kill the plant, and they definitely didn’t get the trunks down to lawnmower friendly levels (aka level with the ground). I have no idea how they mowed the yard before without ruining the lawnmower. I have the fun task of trying to get get all these shrubs under control so that when we get a lawn & lawnmower we don’t have to worry about hitting freaking trunks.

This is in addition to the five million sticks I have to rake out of the yard, the random brick/concrete/quartz rocks that are everywhere in the yard, and the massive invasion of weeds that I have to dig up along the south edge of the property. Most of that area is schedule to be mulched, though, so that should help.

I wonder how much mulch I can buy before Pog starts to question my sanity. >.>

Also, happy birthday Dad! Let the onslaught of summer birthdays begin! Aren’t you glad you don’t have to bake us cakes anymore, Mom? 😀