Yard Work ... ugh........

Hello three-day weekend.  The first weekend in awhile with no real plans.  My Diaper Party  got canceled and Josh only had his drum lessons.  We had the teenagers so we were looking forward to a great relaxing weekend at home.


6:30 Saturday morning Josh wakes up and hits "go" on the coffee.  He went outside to feed the dog. Where's the dog?  Umm ... she's not in her kennel.  She's not on the side yard.  She's not in the corner.  Sheila?  Hello!?!?!  He heard her.  Oh ... there she is.  UNDER THE DECK!!!  Keep in mind last summer the deck was redone and constructed in such a way that she wouldn't be able to dig under the deck again,




She used to crawl under the deck regularly, but was able to get herself out pretty easily because of the nature of the deck.  But this new deck was built lower, had better cement anchors, and was put together with construction adhesive and nails and was not coming apart easily.


We were not happy.  We figured she'd come out when she was hungry and let her be.  A couple hours had passed and she didn't come out.  She was truly stuck.  We dug out a little bit and managed to get her near the hole, but she still wasn't able to get out.  THREE hours later, lots of mud, deeper holes and some serious frustration, she was removed from the deck.


We found ourselves needing to fix things so she wouldn't do this again, because we can't spend 3 hours every other day getting her out.  We made our way to Home Depot and picked up some paving stones, 12"x12", so make an edge around the deck.  We hoped this would deter digging just enough.

And as long as we were dirty and at Home Depot, might as well have our annual yard work day.  This is our 4th summer in this house.  Each summer we've taken on one or more massive yard work project(s) in an attempt to make the yard prettier.  It's not working too well.  One summer we added pretty bark to the back corner that didn't grow anything.  The next summer we took the bark out and planted grass seed (the weeds were growing and it was impossible to keep clean).  One summer we took out the previous year's annuals from the front planter box and replaced the bark.  Last summer we removed a bunch of dumb bushes that just killed the grass.  This summer our project was to get rid of the weeds in the front planter box, replace the bark (again) and plant something.  We decided to do it right and lay down the fabric weed block stuff.  


Rip out the weeds (and let the neighbor lady play with the toddler)

Trim back the rose bush 

Lay down the weed-block and figure out placement for the new plants

Lay down the new bark

Let the toddler pick up what spills

yes, she's wearing knitted mittens

Whack the weeds that are growing in the sidewalk (and mow the grass)

And then stand back and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.

The stones are vacation souvenirs from Pike's Peak (the big one on the left) and Crazy Horse Memorial 

Labor Day

We labored on labor day.

Since we were busy this spring and summer having a baby, we kind of let the gardens get away from us. The weeds overtook the flowers and killed everything, the bushes got overgrown and the ivy was climbing up the walls. So we spent Monday of this week tearing everything out. We left one plant, the prettiest and healthiest rose bush on the far end. I got into a couple fights with the rose bushes, but I got the TKO.

After everything got ripped out, we (and by "we" I mean "Josh") laid down new mulch. Ultimately we should've put down a plastic layer under the mulch to prevent weeds and prevent the mulch from sinking into the ground, but we didn't. Probably next year after we do this all over again.

Part of me feels bad that we let the flowers die and get overtaken by weeds since they were all planted by the neighbor lady across the street. Oh well. We'll try again next year.

 

While doing all the work, we got a visitor on our car.