2015-09-09 - Wednesday - Weeds and pots

I've talked before about the scourge of the porcelain berry coming over our fence from the non-tended yard of our neighbor. It's really annoying. Our yard is not always the most neatly trimmed, but we don't let invasive weeds flourish and we sure as hell don't let them invade the neighbor's yards.

I'm going to cut everything off with the electric hedge trimmer and push the bulk of it back over on their side. I might spray it with some kind of weed killer after pushing it over to keep it from coming right back. This lack of maintenance is irresponsible and annoying.

Something that's not so annoying is when I get to Clayworks to make pots. I did that on Wednesday night when I made another snorkel pot and variation on a garlic pot. Sort of a garlicky pot.

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2015-06-01 - Monday - Pumpkins and terrible weed

I have a volunteer pumpkin vine growing in my (too cool) compost pile from last fall's pumpkin. Since it's growing in straight compost it's very vigorous and spreading rapidly. We'll see if anything comes of it.

We have some very irritating neighbors to the rear of our house. They erected a tall wooden fence before moving a stick of furniture into the house. The workers who built the fence let much of the scrap lumber fall in our yard and left it there. The new fence was built inside their existing metal fence creating about of foot of no-man's land where weeds readily grow. Their dogs are constantly barking at me whenever I'm in my yard.

One of the most irritating things is that they planted some trees about six feet from the fence and they don't tend anything between the trees and the fence. This means that any weeds and vines that grow in the area come right over the fence. One year they had a bumper crop of 7-8 foot thistle plants that all went to seed. I'm still fighting the results of that.

In the last couple of years, it's mainly poison ivy vine, virginia creeper, and the dreaded porcelain berry. This plant grows like kudzu and latches onto everything it can reach. I am constantly slashing and spraying it, but like the tide, it just keeps coming in. I suppose it would help if they were fighting it on their side of the fence, but I'm apparently the only one battling it. Grrr. You can see it all coming over the fence behind the compost pile.

I've never seen these people, let alone met them, but I sure wish they'd take a little bit more responsibility with their yard.

Good fences don't always make good neighbors.

Pumpkin vine eating my compost.

Pumpkin flower.

Porcelain berry [shudder].

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October 6 - Sunday - Yard stuff

Sunday I did some yard work and wondered again about a series of holes where the neighbors took down a willow oak tree several years ago.  Something has moved in and apparently created a warren with several holes in a three-foot square.  I'm assuming they are chipmunks since we are currently overrun with them.  They are multiplying conspicuously and digging dens all over the property.  I think the neighborhood hawks are falling down on the job and I think the neighbors are killing too many black snakes.

As I was walking past the huge elderberry bush that I've been meaning to remove for about three years, I decided today was the day it needed to leave.  Besides the elderberry, there was a cherry tree, an oak, and another weed tree growing in there.  There was also a lot of porcelain berry, Virginia creeper, and thick poison ivy vine.

Somewhere around four hours after I started, everything was on the curb and I was sore as hell.

But hey, it was done.

Chipmunk holes with my reading glass case for scale.

Elderberry and friends on the curb.

Here's a photo of the elderberry (large bush on the right)
from last May.

After the battle.

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