Pickups and chains and Implements of Destruction

All of these things were involved in this morning’s after-breakfast project.  I’ve been meaning to tear out a row of mildewy, overgrown Japanese spindletree (euonymus japonicus Thunb.) from the north side of the house.  Besides being diseased, the shrubs make fine hiding places for vermin and cause rot to build up (and lord knows the north side of the house doesn’t need any help with THAT).

So a while back I borrowed a pair of chains from Tomax, and today I got out and crawled around in the dirt to wrap the Chain of Command around the roots of each bush, then joined it up with her other chain and one of my own, crawled around some more to hook the other end of my chain to one of Piet’s rear spring mounts, put him into granny low, and slowly pulled up each one, along with a bunch of overgrowing Carolina coral seed (Cocculus carolinus L.) and other vegetative crap.  Currently the whole mess is lying in the side yard, waiting for me to find out when the next city brush pickup is gonna be.  Now I need to get out with a grubbing hoe and start digging up the remaining roots, as well as so much of the coral seed as I can, and re-set the bed edging that’s been undermined.  I may have to break down and Roundup the coral seed, it’s so pervasive and hard to dig up and kill.  I’m also thinking of digging up and relocating the schoolhouse lilies in the bed under the San Saba pecan, and MAYbe, if I REALLY get excited, taking down and rewiring the front yard pole lamp which has been shorted out for years, ever since I nicked the buried but unprotected Romex that runs to it from the house.  The Romex needed to be redone anyway, because some DIY-er with more enthusiasm than talent did an utterly crappy job of tying it in to the circuit.  I’m thinking I ought to put a junction box onto the house to protect the join, then run the new Romex inside a conduit and bury that.

And in the process of pulling out euonymus and coral seed runners that got up inside the silly little decorative shutters nailed beside each window, I discovered that they’ve rotted from the back and are all to pieces, not to mention harboring carpenter ants, so they’re coming down as well.  I swear, the more I look at the condition of the north house wall, the more I think it’s just standing up there by the grace of God.

The NCR frogs shed some of their multi-layer plating in the rice cookies.  Fnord.