Bushwhacking

Make sure you take a moment to
participate in our
Where's Waldo--er Jimbo?
CONTEST
for a chance to be featured on our blog.
(Ya gotta read the comments for the great joke by gary.)

While Jim dug posts for the llama pen extension, I picked up pruning shears and took to the poison berry bushes. Actually, as I began to cut them, I realized they bear a striking resemblance to bamboo. They are cylindrical, smooth, jointed, and have hollow insides. We had bamboo growing on our old property, but it never flowered or had berries, though, so now I'm really wondering what this thing is, Research last year by the berries and leaf shape, however, revealed pokeberries.

At first I thought the plants were faking me out because the stems were still green, not red like they are when the berries mature, but then I realized today that they are indeed pokeberries. Sitting cut in the sun, the stalks deepened to red. So I did recognize them correctly by the flower formations. (Phew.)

Here's a before trim picture. Can you guess what's in this mess of foliage other than deceptive plants trying to get me to leave them standing?





A stump.



On closer inspection this stump appears to have been thrown there. It's not attached to the ground. That will take a bit more than pruners and a rake to move.

This area looks a little better, now, but there's still a long way to go. The back of the house has overgrown terribly since last year. Must be all that sun and rain we've gotten.


Here I am raking the "lawn" next to the trailer. Oooooo, l - a - w - n...
(Yup. I have really long hair. All the better to catch ticks with. Bleck.)



I made the area wider by cutting bushes around the grill.



We can actually walk by the grill to the pool now without scratching our legs on prickers.


The really nice thing about this landscaping stuff is that I've discovered that our property has a berry jackpot--a lot more than I ever knew last week. Black raspberries are scant and I actually found a red raspberry strand this weekend. (Gave them to my mom. Wasn't that nice?) Blackberries, though, are so abundant we could probably package and sell them.

Oh goodie-goodie-goodie. I'll be in berry heaven.