Kate:1 Garden:2

Biggest news: we are officially moved out of our St. Paul apartment (sad). We turned in our keys over the weekend. Now if we can just get that security deposit back to pay for the HVAC unit that's being installed as we speak!

I've been putting in some major time trying to tackle the backyard in preparation for the big birthday party coming up this weekend. Cutting the rampant, tick-filled grass; removing all the trash and brush; and primarily hacking back the ivy and overgrown trees in the raised terrace bed. I got the worst poison ivy of my life all over my arms (oozing for over a week!) that is now finally beginning to heal. I got scratches and scrapes and two mosquito bites on my face which made it all lumpy. It felt like a losing battle.

But today the garden was no match for the Clippers of Doom. Let's revisit what the garden looked like when I moved in:

Yikes. We've got some trees which are busting through the fence. We've got ivy which is obscuring the bed outline and actually growing into the grass.  We've got trash and brush all over the yard. Mega-yikes.

So Jon and I cut down all the trees and vines, and today I finally got it and all the brush bundled up and onto the sidewalk. It doesn't look like much from this far away, but trust me...IT IS!

And here is what the backyard looks like now:

Indeed, it still needs some work, but we're getting there!  And there's a big jug of Round-up calling my name...  En guard, evil ivy!