8:02 p.m. - 2003-04-30
Jungle Tour
You know, I'm reeeeeally kinda' tired today, so I'm just going to show you pitchers.
This here's a pitcher of what happens when you get bitten by a fire ant. That's right, folks, just ONE fire ant can cause THIS:
Just one bite! And this was taken after I put Benedryl cream on it! You can't tell from this photo, but half my wrist is swollen!
I don't have too many problems with poison ivy, but I have terrible reactions to fire ants. All those horror stories you hear about mothers finding their small children playing in fire ant nests scare the pants off me.
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Here's a picture of the famed Chubby Long:
What a fabulous plant. Chubby got repotted this week, and is now in a very tasteful aqua 1950's McCoy-type pot.
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You're all real curious about this jungle yard of mine aren't you?! NO?!!! Well, you're going to see pictures of it anyway, you naughty things!!!
These first couple are not soo jungley, because I want you to see the amazing potential that our house has to be just simply the envy of everyone....in about twenty years.
This is the house when the dogwoods were blooming. There's even a pink dogwood, which is kind of usual. Don't look at the house! I know, it's a boring fifties rancher! Just look at the dogwoods! (Hypnotic voice) Looook at the dooooogwooooods! Looook at the doooogwooods!
If you go around to the back of that admittedly boring house, you'll see a patio and then you'll see this horseshoe shaped brick pathway. When we bought the house, this pathway was covered over by literally a foot of vines and dirt. It took me a solid week to dig out and it actually is not even finished yet.
And what's at the top of this pathway? Here's where you should brace yourself, it's a nightmare:
This is the area we call the "T.S. Eliot Memorial Garden" aka: "The Wasteland". It's an old swimming pool foundation that is overrun with vines and noxious weeds. It's also where Mr. Groundhog lives, so we've been hesitant about trying to reclaim it. It's ok, we have much more jungley land to take care of before we get to this part.
If you go to the left at the top of this path, you'll shortly come to this:
This courtyard was also covered with dirt and vines. We only discovered it because we found a brick sticking up through the dirt. It took ages to dig out, but it's sooooo beautiful. I have no idea why the previous owners covered it up.
We keep finding bricks sticking up through the jungley vines. Who knows how many courtyards and brick pathways we will eventually find? It's like an archeological expedition here!
Here's our future veggie garden, at the side of the house. That's one of the Dr. van Fleet roses in the background, and some more dogwoods. We have at least eight of them. The sprawling leafless bushy thingey to the right is the Brown Turkey fig tree. It just started leafing out this week.
And here is the famous and very ugly "RV Hut".
GAG!! It's next to the detached garage (yes, the place has a detached garage. It's like the Kennedy compound except everything needs a good paint job) and we were thinking of taking it down, but then I hit on a good idea for it. Eventually we're going to rip off all that hideous plastic and the wood siding and paint it some fabulous colour. And then we'll hang a candle chandelier from the ceiling and put an equally brightly coloured picnic table in there. It'll be a nice place to eat on hot nights!!
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