Blackberry war

My yard backs up to I'm not sure what, I think it's a battle between the city and the county, there's my fence, 2 plus feet of blackberry bushes and another fence, I have mounds of mole holes and miles of blackberry bushes, allllll along my fence. I have a love hate relationship with these bushes. I love that they are an amazing privacy barrier between my yard and the river...I hate that they over take my fence and yard in what seems like a matter of days in the spring and summer, BUT I do love picking the over-ripe plump berries off of the vine and baking dump cake. So while they are a nuisance, if I cut them back in a timely manner, we can all live together harmoniously.

Today, I decided to try and cut some back... now I know, I should wear long pants, but I get so dang hot, all the time, so I wore shorts, a long sleeve shirt (and a short sleeve tee for part of the time) and of course, gloves, always leather gloves when we are approaching the blackberry bushes... I thought that I had a pair of shears with long blades, but for the life of me, I can't find them. So, I went to work with the little choppers and my hand clippers. I clipped, pulled, swore, chopped, and pulled some more. I'm only 3/4's of the way done... my legs are a mess (as I pretty much knew that they would be, my bad, I know--) My yard waste container is almost full to the rim--I had to rake the front lawn again--if the weather holds (snow ??) I'll cut some of the bigger vines up more and shove them in the container.

After I lost all patience with the blackberry wars and raked, I checked all of my containers... I have a lot of work to do. I can NOT wait for the final frost -- I have daylillies to split, bushes to move into containers, containers to empty into the yard, so much fun stuff !!

Paint and plants

I love all the plants and planters in my yard. But, I realized early on that although it's not terrible, I don't really care for the standard green, white and tan resin planters and chairs and tables that you find at your local hardware stores. So, I decided to paint them, you're already at the hardware store, they sell spray paint, what the heck...I started small...5 resin chairs and 3 tables. We've expanded to include planters now, oh and rocks too. This spring I plan on painting at least 1 item found in the shed to look like a rock. I know, nut-bag ;) I absolutely cannot wait to get outside again full time. But, back to this week-end, I did a little painting, the process is funny, I dangle pots over stakes, or line them up on garbage bags. The goal this week-end was to try and get 3 done. I needed to get some plants transplanted from the holiday's; I had bought a gorgeous center piece for our table, it included a poinsettia, and 4 house plants. But, they were getting weary of being cramped. The best temperature is between 60 and 70 degree's F, but it was barely 50 this week-end, so it took a little longer to go on and dry. Finally tonight, fighting the kittens off, on the kitchen floor, I transplanted them. Just makes me want spring that much more...

oh, we started on a wicker waste basket too, what's old is new again ~