Sisyphean

While sisyphean is a good description for my rolling to-do list in general, yard work is the part that feels endless to me.  The darned weeds just keep on growing and all I need is a couple of weekends booked with social events, a little rain, and the whole thing careens wildly out of control.    The worst offenders are the vines.  They pop up everywhere.  And some of the folks in my area just chuck them down the gully behind our houses where they take root again and send insidious tendrils back into my yard.  I swear, they're out to get me.

So, after surveying the situation earlier in the week (house about to be submerged in tidal wave of evil green tentacles),  I selected one section of the yard to focus on last weekend.  Here's the before.

And after hours of ripping up vines, dripping sweat, raking the debris from last winter, and then mowing what was left...it could still use some more vine suppression around the edges, but it's a lot better.

That drives back the vines closest to the house.  I've got two more areas of the yard to tackle.  And then my sawzall and I have to go after the weeds that have gotten too big to just rip out.

In the front, by happy contrast, things are humming right along.   Irises and blue flags are glorious. I put them in 12 years ago, and they have thrived under my policy of benign neglect.

The rhododendrons are blooming contentedly.

The side flower garden was in-between for a couple of  weeks- the violets and lilies of the valley gone by, nothing else really blooming.  But the first Siberian iris opened its petals on Sunday, swiftly followed by more, and the lupines are blooming.

And I had been feeling silly about trying nasturtiums again (after nothing sprouted when I planted them last year).   But this year, they have responded beautifully, and I've got seedlings throughout the bed... with any luck they'll be ready to bloom by the time the Siberian irises and lupines have gone by.   I'd feel quite smug about having flowers staged to bloom throughout the summer if it wasn't that it was a complete accident- all I was doing was trying to find something that will survive in this darned space!

Inside is a bit of a wreck what with all the focus on the outdoors, but at least Biscuit is keeping an eye on the laundry for me.  Behind the socks is his favorite place to hide.  No one sees you behind the socks!

On the knitting front, same old.  I'm on to the second Nutkin sock, I've knit more stockinette vest.  And I've cast on more mittens, because - really?  Two weeks plus and no FOs?  It's embarrassing!