Must Have Been A Sale!

I spent half of yesterday, all day today and three days the weekend before last digging out monkey grass.  I’m so tired!!  My body hurts.  However, this weekend I noticed that either I’m much better at digging out the monkey grass or this monkey grass was suicidal.  It was much easier this weekend than it was two weeks ago.  And I’m a little less sore.  So maybe I’m stronger!  This weekend’s chore also included removing a mound of juniper.  I had no idea what to expect under all the leaves, needles, branches…whatever juniper is.  I was surprised to find is was sort of like a little tree.  It had a trunk!  I lopped off all the branches until it was just a 3′ tall trunk.  I dug out from under it, tugged at it with all my weight, and lopped off many of the bigger roots.  I finally got that baby out!  By the end of today I had cleared out about a 5’x5′ area and planted seeds for Chinese Lanterns, Dahlias, and English Dasiys as well as a small plant of Creeping Jenny and Blue Star Creeper. 

All the clearing and digging up of the Monkey Grass and Juniper I’ve done over the last several weeks is just a drop in the bucket.  I mean really…the people who lived here before us must have found on Heck Of A Sale on Monkey Grass and Juniper.  I HATE Monkey Grass!  Juniper isn’t too bad usually but most of it has reached the end of its natural life span and looks horrible.  I just have to keep reminding myself that if we do a little bit at a time we’ll make progress.

On another note, since we’ve been living here we’ve been very careful not to let Chester out at the same time as Peanut, the dog next door.  Chester has a reputation of not being very friendly towards other dogs.  He and Peanut are very similar in size and shape but, Peanut is all white with a pink nose and Chester has his brown spots.  Today I let Chester out and didn’t notice that Peanut was out with her mom too.  They noticed each other and were in a very scary fight before I or my neighbor could get to them.  It sounded horrible and violent but, by the time I was within about 10′ of them it was over.  They were both fine and just spent the next few minutes circling each other and sniffing.  Big time sniffing.  Then they were fine.  I’m so happy that it’s over and they both survived!!