If I had to pick a theme for the last few days, that theme would be: DEATH.

But not in the bad way.

Last week I wrote about my upcoming battle against the jungle in my backyard and my struggles against the ant invasion in my kitchen. I am happy to report progress on both fronts (and by progress, of course, I mean death to my enemies, and by enemies I mean ants and pollen-producing plants).

Here's the ant update. I implemented the three-phase battle plan I discussed earlier. I secured the perimeter of the house with Raid. I set out ant traps to allow the little bastards to poison themselves and their queen, and I sprayed any kitchen counter encroachers with 409/Windex. The number of ants did seem to diminish over the week. Then, on Thursday night, something amazing happened.

As I entered the kitchen to get myself a TV snack (mmmmm, chocolate), I spotted an unusual creature on the kitchen floor. It looked like a super ant. It was mostly ant shaped, but longer. It appeared to be the queen ant, and she was walking really strangely, almost staggering.

This was it! The queen! The final battle! The boss battle of ALL TIME!

I grabbed a newspaper and rolled it up. Then I juked to the left, the feigned right, then backed up slightly, then stutter stepped to the right. She had no idea what she was up against! After I dazzled her with my footwork, I slammed the newspaper down on her regal antly head. She was dead. Death to the queen. God did not save her.

The following day I saw two more ants and I windexed them away. Since then, nothing. I'm not fully ready to declare victory because it hasn't rained in over a week, so they may return the next time their home gets wet, but until then, HURRAY FOR ME! DEATH TO ANTS!

Meanwhile, I've been destroying plants in my backyard. I spent hours today chopping down foliage with loppers, shovels, and saws. My tender little computer programmer hands are scraped and blistery.

Then, after hearing from 4th Sister and everyone else about how my great composting pile will really just turn into a rat nest, I decided to throw some money at the problem. I bought an electric chipper and dragged it into my yard. So, after cutting down bunches of branches, I ground them down into tiny little wood chips with my handy dandy chipper.

I've done various gardening tasks during my 30+ years. I did a fair amount when I was a kid with my father, and I've done the odd day here and there in my own house since then. I can honestly say that feeding branches into a chipper and watching them turn into tiny little bits is the most satisfying yard work I've ever done. I can't make plants grow very well, but I sure as hell can kill them well now. I can kill them to smithereens!

So, I'm winning TWO land battles. Look out, Asia!