By this time I took this set of pictures, I had been living in this house for 2 months. During that time, I did what I do best - cut the grass and trim the bushes. My goal for this summer day was to try to continue getting all of the wild growth under control. So I broke out the lawn mower, weed eater, and hedge trimmer and got to work. It's amazing how much of a difference just cutting the grass made.

Concentrating on maintenance over the last two months made quite a difference, especially in the backyard.

When we first looked at this house in the spring, I commented about what I perceived as the lack of privacy hedges in between the properties on this side of the yard. Now that summer has arrived, what was there had filled in a little bit, which is good.

This corner of the yard was quite overgrown, but looked much better after a few passes with the lawn mower. I made an odd discovery under the English Ivy next to the pine trees in the photo above. The ivy was covering a large pile of loose bricks. I have no idea where they came from, or why they were piled in this corner of the yard. But there were quite a few of them under there. I'll find a use for them eventually.

The area seen in the photo above also looked much better after a few passes with the lawn mower. Little by little, I'll work my way into the area behind the dog enclosure. Eventually, I'll probably remove the enclosure altogether, since we don't have a dog. That should open up the area quite a bit and make it more accessible.

I would spend the rest of the year doing nothing more than basic maintenance - keeping the grass cut and bushes trimmed. It would be a while before I would get brave and actually try to plant something. But for now, things were starting to look much better.