In the meantime....

Wednesday, Sep 14
Since the second day of foam spraying and cleanup was keeping me from doing anything in the house, rather than sit around all day doing nothing (like the last half of yesterday) I decided to tackle the empty lot next door, the one I'm going to purchase from the original owner.

Mary, the original owner, is in her late 60's or early 70's, lives on the next street over, and is a feisty die-hard Republican with a capital "R".  I've had several spirited conversations with her.  I'm not practiced at putting my political views to voice so it was tough to keep up with her.  The best path was to take what she says with a grain of salt, smile, nod a lot...and consider the source.  Still, I do enjoy talking with her.  She and her late husband built their house from scratch back in the mid to early 70's.  She knows what I'm going through and likes to keep up on the progress so I fill her in or invite her over on a semi-regular basis.

Anyway, the lot is pretty much overgrown with a fair number of saplings, weeds, and A LOT of dreaded now dead but none-the-less dangerous poison ivy.   I only need to get near that stuff and I break out.  I've had it before, I'm sure I'll get it again.  Call me nutz!,  I decided to take it on in-spite of the risks.

You can almost see the property line

The house next door through the brush

I spent the better part of the day and evening mowing, picking up dead limbs, raking debris, pulling down those nasty Texas prickly vines that somehow can grow straight up with little support until it snags a tree and then, if left to it's own devices, can strangle a tree.  Funny thing is though, for a vine, a good strong pull and it will release it's grip.   I've got three piles; branches, vines, leaves and other such crud.  When the burn ban is lifted, it will all go up in rural smoke.

Poison ivy.... 
I tried not to touch any of the debris piles with my bare hands, but alas, even with the best of efforts, you can't avoid mother nature!  Everything was dry due to months of no rain.  Dry means dusty.  Dusty means poison ivy particulants in the air......and now on me.  It's pretty amazing how that stuff can get at you.  It was warm so I was perspiring.  My socks, jeans got damp which in turn allowed the poison ivy oil in the dust that settled on my socks, jeans, arms to migrate through the material and .....well you get it.   I'll know in a couple of days for sure!

As the weeds and such were either mowed or cut down, the lot started looking quite presentable.  Today's progress represents only about 50% of the clean up.  There's the other half to deal with still.