Doing some yard work, oh my GOD I hate the guy who lived here before. Everything\u2019s either been overrun with vines or bamboo, allowed to overgrow for years and then brutally squared off with a chainsaw or worse, both, so that even when I trim back the undergrowth I\u2019m just exposing a mutilated carcass of a tree.
I guess I just have to do the lion stepdad thing and start mostly from scratch. In fairness that\u2019ll be made less painful by the same reason these problems came up in the first place - Portland is a fertile valley in the middle of a rainforest, built on a lava field plus all the silt and flood-borne topsoil from multiple mountain ranges, and shit grows absurdly quickly here.
I am in a little dip microclimate that encourages moss to grow on the trunks, that\u2019s nice. Between that, shoji-like panes on the windows, and some other things I think I\u2019m going to go for a Japanese theme in renovating. That\u2019s easy to overdo into kitsch, but I\u2019ll keep an eye on it.