Another Exciting Yardwork Story

Some time in a long past decade, two trees that were growing alongside The Pavilion, gave up and died. For some unknown reason their trunks were cut down to around six feet and allowed to remain standing. That wasn't the end of the story for those trees. In fact they moved on to a new life. Of sorts. They became home to a hungry, fast growing ivy colony. The ivy flourished and thrived on the flesh of the dead trees. Over the years the ivy crept upwards, clinging to the wood and formed a huge dense bush that sprouted some little flowering buds that emerged every late summer. Long whip-like 'branches' grew from the top of the mass and hung down towards the ground, requiring a major trim at least twice each year. As the person who always did the trimming, I came to despise that stuff a little. Those tendrils were surprisingly thick and rubbery. They resisted electric shears and cutting through them with "loppers" was a time-consuming, tedious chore. In recent years I noticed that the dead trees hosting the ivy were beginning to lean towards the side of the house, being slowly pulled down by the weight of all of that parasitic vegetation. A few weeks ago there was a shower of thick, wet snow. It didn't stick around long but just long enough to assist the vine growth in pulling the dead trees down. The space along the side of the house became totally blocked off due to the huge cluster that had tipped over. Fortunately my neighbor-buddy Dale came by a few days later with his power winch and we were able to rip the dead trees out of the ground. The ivy fought back though. It had a death grip on the trees and the ground beneath. It took me a couple of more days of work which finally resulted in Dale's 25 foot flatbed trailer loaded to the limit with tree trunk sections and a massive tangle of vines that we hauled away to a landfill site that accepts large amounts of yard debris. Now there's a large open space between The Pavilion and the house next door. As much as I disliked the ivy, it did actually serve as sort of a "good neighbor fence" where it had been growing along the property line. So ironically, I kind of miss it now since for so long it had hid the neighbor's back porch, which with all the clutter isn't a pretty visual....