Don't Talk About The Rabbits

It turns out it is possible to eat too much brie at one sitting...

Here is another question for the hive mind. Is there a safe way to kill poison ivy? Something that 1) WON'T LET IT GET ME 2) does not involve the use of poisons of any kind? 3) I NEED TO BE SAFE.

There are too many animals that go through my backyard for me to feel comfortable using chemicals. Besides the natural wildlife, approximately a zillion cats tromp through there every day, it's like a cat highway.

But I am absolutely terrified of the stuff coming over the fence from the conservation land that abuts my yard after last year's brush with ITCHY GREEN DEATH. When I say safe, I mean *safe*.

It's going to be an ongoing problem in the years to come I can tell, since the City gives not a single damn about that land, and is never going to do anything about the issue (even though, on the other side of the lot, it is now endangering a billion small children who use the park).

It makes me a little wistful. The land in question used to belong with house. It was clear then, except for apple trees. Instead of the overgrown greenery mess (that admittedly, creates a beautiful privacy wall) there was clear access to a stream that was uncluttered by foliage and which ran along the paper street. I know it must have been a bitch to take care of (which is why the owner simply deeded it over to the City) but it still sounds like it was lovely. And also, like it was poison ivy free.

June is here! It is finally HOT! after weeks of meandering around raining and drizzly and not-at-all-hot. merryish is giving me evil looks and looking melty around the edges.

This weekend I did something I really really did not want to do, and had been putting off, and putting off, and as a result of the putting off, it was even harder to do. Namely, I bought a lawn mower.

I love the garden, but the last time I mowed a lawn was high school, and I used a push mower, and this idea of a huge giant gas-driven thing which is dangerous, and heavy, and weighs as much as some skinny adult humans totally, utterly, intimidates me. Plus it was really expensive. And you have to store gas in your garage. And learn how to sharpen blades and change oil.

I'm sort of opposed to all of it, really.

But, we did buy a lawn mower, and barely managed to wedge the sucker into the back seat of my sub-compact to get it home. It was too damp to try it out on Saturday, so on Sunday, I started it up, and gave it a go. Took me about two minutes to figure out I hadn't attached the bag or side shute and there was no way for the grass to actually get out. Had a small heart attack. Attached the bag, and started over.

It wasn't easy. In part because the grass is practically knee level from my ignoring it until now. But okay, it would have been a hell of a lot harder if they didn't have things like personal-pace, and safety bars, and electric starts these days. It was tough to manuever, and I am going to need to find another way to handle some of the small narrow areas. I managed about a quarter of the lawn before I had to carefully put the mower away and go inside and SHOWER IN ICE WATER. Possibly noon on a 95 degree day was not the best plan. I will try and get the rest of the lawn in small chunks over the evenings this week.

The garden continues not to need my assistance to look great. At this point, I'm terrified to touch even the stuff I'm pretty sure is weeds, because so much of it has turned out not to be weeds.

( GARDEN! SPAM!!1! )