It started with the goldenrod

On Saturday, I noticed that the very large beds in the side yard were overrun with blackberry and goldenrod. I hadn't noticed because the goldenrod kind of looks like the tall phlox. The bed is shared with Siberian Irises and Peonies that were starting to look very shaded out.
I started pulling. And pulling.
Made my way through those to beds and around to the front bed where I decided to spend a little time pulling poison ivy. After doing that for long enough to know I'd probably gotten at least a little on my arms, I turned my attention to the front foundation of the house.

At some point in the distant past, a concrete apron was poured around the edge of the house. On the north and south side, it's a good foot+ out from the house. On the west side, it's only maybe 6". On the east side, (the front), it didn't appear to have any apron at all.
Well, that's not entirely true.
Upon further examination, to the left of the front door, there appeared to be a foot wide apron extending up to a poured concrete window well. I thought that perhaps, over time, the soil level and vegetation had just come up over the apron along the rest of the front, and that it needed to be exposed.

A little back story about why I was compelled to expose the apron and/or foundation -
The other night, I came home to find a big fat black ant sitting squarely in the middle of my bed.
The carpenter variety.
Big enough where even the cat just looked at me blankly, as if to say, "awe heck no. That's your problem."
I'd treated the foundation with Ortho Home Defense granules, but this bugger got through.
Carpenter ants will send out foragers in the spring to locate food and new digs. I'm betting that's what this one was, but I can't have anything insect related thinking this was a good idea.
The ant got squashed, and I got to have dreams about giant monster ants eating my house that night.
My foundation and thus my wooden sill are perilously close to surface ground level. This is likely because the house was built into the side of a slope 150 years ago, and soil has been washing down and building up ever since. Short of something ridiculously drastic like major heavy-equipment landscaping or jacking the house up and extending the foundation by a foot, that is not going to change. But I can make sure that I'm not providing insects any easy access to my abode.
Friends, please understand - No matter what Home Depot or Lowes or HGTV try to sell you, foundation plantings are just not a good idea, particularly when your house is made out of a delicious insect buffet. Mulch and vegetation provide a highway right into your home. It also holds moisture against your home, which for anything wood is not a stellar idea.

This is the window well that must have used up the last of the cement.

I started digging. The apron only went to the window well and stopped. I don't know why, it sort of felt like they ran out of cement and called it quits. But someone had taken the time to run a line of bricks under the drip edge of the roof over to the front step. Only to the left of the front door, there was nothing to the right. The soil was an average about 3" from the siding, and grass was actively growing up under it.
Saturday, I took the grass and dirt down about 4-6 inches. That brought us to here:

There's the bricks that were hiding under the grass.

And dug out.

Sunday I got up, determined to finish the front. If you go back and look at that last photo, you'll see a funny concrete platform next to the granite step. (The step is also level with the ground and will need to be addressed, as currently my front door doesn't meet code.)
If I was going to spend my time and money making the front of the house pretty, I wanted that cement slab gone.
I got out my sledge hammer and mason's hammer and... that's a story for a different post.
The short of it is I have a new/old window in my basement, about 12 free grey cement bricks and about 50 lbs of sharp sand.

I re-edged the grass, and took the bricks I'd excavated out from the left side of the door and inserted them behind the granite step to replace the crumbling ones there, filling the gaps with the sand. The bricks are really neat - there's different names stamped into them, so I made sure they were name side up.

I need to wash the lichens off the house.

 Then I went to Home Depot, where I got weed block cloth, 14 more grey cement bricks, and 7 sacks of crushed bluestone. I know I probably could have gotten the stone cheaper in bulk, but I don't need a whole yard of stone, and I don't have a truck.
When you have all the stuff you need, things go surprisingly quickly.
I cut the fabric and put down a double layer, laid some roofing slate flat and sprinkled it with ant and grub killer. I figure the slates  will help keep the weeds down.

Nice and flat.

Ta Da!

So much cleaner!

So much easier to keep the bugs away!

I hear you now - "Why?! Why is there a brick missing in the middle?"
Well, because there's a rock that's tied into the cement of the window well that sits right below the surface.
So, a gap.
Not ideal, but I don't need to be pouring new window wells.

Which brings me back to that funny cement platform I was beating up with a sledge hammer...