Why Am I Dressed Like...

...I'm going on a motorcycle ride you ask?!

Long story short, we are carrying out a poison ivy-excavation in our back yard! :0(
We had a repairman come to assess the damage done to the back fence of our rental house on Tremont Court (damage sustained last fall from fallen tree), and he informed me that we have a serious poison ivy infestation along our back fence!  Say what?!  So we've been playing amongst poison ivy for nearly two months now?  And neither Nate nor I noticed this?! AND neither of the girls has touched it yet?!  We are ripe for a "lesson" from Mother Nature, that's for sure!

So that's why I'm covered from head-to-toe in 90* weather with 80% humidity, looking to get a case of heat stroke! We've toyed with Mother Nature for nearly two months now and I don't want my luck to run out this week. So I've been digging out decades old ivy vines and poison ivy from our fence line (this poison ivy is DEFINITELY older than the 10 months we've been here) for approximately six days now...and we're still not done.  Even with Nate coming home and pulling evening ivy-excavation shift after he gets home from work...we're stiiiiiiiiiiill not done. *agh*

Hopefully we'll get it all dug out by tomorrow...and then we'll have to figure out how to get rid of the 40+ yard waste bags (no lie) that we've accumulated.  On the bright side (if there is one), Nate and I can spot poison ivy from 20 yards away now!

Oh! And we've experienced our first run-in with the Virginia tick...well Lauren has anyway.  With all the time we've been spending outdoors excavating this week, it was bound to happen.  I don't have pictures to commemorate this event though, because it took me to hold her down and Nate to pry the tick off her back with tweezers...and then the second one off her thigh.  Oh poison ivy, I guess you did "get yours" via your little tick friend!