My fellow Americans, I am engaged in a seemingly never-ending war.

The particular armed conflict, which has been filled with buckets of sweat, blood, bruises and plenty of wounds (both mentally and physically), is one I have been engaged in for nearly three years. There have been moments — battles, if you will — I feel the war has come to an end. That I have climbed that proverbial hill and proudly planted my flag ready to come home the victor. 

Of course, each one of those victories was short-lived, and thankfully, I never had to deal with the embarrassment that comes with hanging up a “Mission Accomplished” banner.

If I am the hero in this conflict, then who is the villain? 

A global terrorist organization? An armed-to-the-teeth drug cartel? Your standard roving biker gang? None of the above. My sworn enemy is none other than my own damn yard.

I didn’t always feel a desire to go to war with my yard. In fact, when my wife and I first bought our house, and the nearly one acre of yard that came with it, we dreamt about how fantastic it would be in the years to come with backyard barbecues, and our daughter running around the yard laughing. Having your own yard is part of home ownership and something I looked forward to, especially after spending years in town homes and apartments. 

I was so gung ho I even bought not one but two mowers (a push and a rider) from my folks (they have their own lawnmower repair business), and my wife even bought me a weedeater for Father’s Day. 

My dreams these days consist of either pouring gasoline to every shrub, tree and blade of grass on my property and lighting a match, or getting a cement truck to unload a payload over the whole thing. 

How did this happen? Because my yard hates me and is trying to kill me at every turn. Seriously, I am fully expecting to have that dead tree from the original “Poltergiest” crash through my bedroom window and assault me in the middle of the night.

The first shots fired occurred when my neighbor’s tree broke in half and fell down on our property, splitting our poor satsuma tree (which is a favorite of both my father and daughter) and leaving ankle-twisting potholes in the yard. This yard project took months to complete, as we had to cut up the tree, and go through a few chainsaws in the process, filling in the holes and then waiting to burn not one but two giant piles of wood. I was known as the free firewood guy for a short time. Never got a business card made up ,though.

In the years that have followed there have been dustups with fire ants (like seriously — what does it take to get rid of them?), a stray cat that we can’t catch to take to the shelter and who will claw you if you try, and two rose bushes that I have cut down and dug up out of the ground only to have them grow back stronger than before. Did the past homeowner put some joujou on these bushes?

All of that pales in comparison to the war with my drainage ditch.

It was always a workout to cut down the weeds in the ditch with the weed eater, and that was before it started not draining properly. After months of having the ditch as an eyesore, we had our town agree to come out and redig the ditch. Not only did it drain properly again but there were no weeds in it. It was clean and I didn’t have to worry about weed-eating it. I was feeling pretty victorious. Then this spring came around.

The weeds came back with more force — like an angry possessed ancient spirit kind of force. They quickly overtook the ditch and I once again found myself in a never-ending battle. I had apathy about my ditch and yard and then last week I decided to strike back. I woke up early and went out and attacked the ditch with a fury that General Patton would appreciate. I stayed out there for hours and went over and over again in that ditch. I cut down the weeds, and then I took my push mower and attacked it again. I am fairly certain that I let out a few maniacal laughs which probably concerned my neighbors.

But I am not done, my friends. After buying “weed killing” products in the past that did nothing, I have now decided to create my own “weed killer” — a homemade mixture I found online that consists of dish soap, salt and vinegar. I will take it to another level as I will be trying to find a priest to add holy water to the mixture, and then try to find me a voodoo priestess on Craig’s List to come by and add some joujou. You can find anything on Craig’s List.

That may seem going overboard to you, but when you are involved in a longstanding war like this, and facing an advisory this formidable, you can not show any mercy.

Stay tuned …

RAYMOND PARTSCH III is the managing editor of The Daily Iberian.