Now that the early-blooming flowers have died back, it's time for maintenance, so I spent the morning with Mom, weeding out the back yard, the strip on the driveway, and the right-side yard.
First order of business was to cut down the irises. I started in the driveway strip, and after finishing with the irises, I moved on to weeding out the primroses that were attempting to choke out Mom's peonies.
And in that process, I came across three spiders duking it out.
I will not touch that spot again this year.

.....

How long do spiders live?

And wow, the roots of those primroses, especially the parent plants. The ones I pulled out had roots three inches long, and I know that they were broken off. There are still strong root tips hiding underground, waiting for the next chance to sprout.
Hopefully, though, I've hurt the plants and delayed the next wave.

Next up was the right-side yard. The grape hyacinths are gone, and there were more irises to dead-head.
Um.
Found spider mites living on some of the irises in the side yard..
Not good.
Hopefully they haven't infected the day lilies that are just starting to bloom.

My sister's rose bush, after many years of not doing a thing, seemingly dead, has begun blooming again. But . . . it is very leggy. Not sure what to do about that. It's leaning over, too, and I'm not sure whether to dead-head it, too, or to leave it alone. I don't even know what kind it is, so I can't look up specific care for it.

Finally, after all the weeding was done, the compost Mom and I had piled up got buried under the hostas in the back yard.

About bacteria.
Warning! These articles may gross you out.
Armpits: 'Rain Forests' for Bacteria
Women Carry More Bacteria Than Men
How Stuff Works: Antibacterial soap vs Regular soap
How Stuff Works: Bacteria

Finally:
Remember black kitty?
It's a boy.
All this time we thought it was a girl.
He's just that young that his stuff didn't show until now.
It explains his aggressiveness lately.
And. Now there's the problem of getting them both fixed before they're old enough to make a problem of it.
Especially if they want to keep him from spraying.
And now we've started calling him Loki.
Because it just fits him so much better than Ebony.