Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Spring Sets In

Today we are mowing for the first time of the season. Well... technically Dan is mowing and I am staying inside with our sniffley daughter.

We are starting to develop our Big Spring Plans for the yard. Experience tells me we'll only accomplish one big project for the season, but inspiration is edging me to believe we can accomplish anything - including expanding the garden area and building a new fire pit to be in the middle of our new patio at the top of the yard surrounded by fruit trees. It's obviously not going to happen as there is no chance we could even design a patio before the trees would have to be put in, but the picture is so clear in my mind I can't help but dream.

One step at a time... this week we're focusing on getting the lawn taken care of (possibly even killing the moss and over seeding) then finishing up the winter yard clean up of tree branch piles and tree trunk placement.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

If we, work together we can make the job seem fun

We had an oddly wet end of summer last year. On the one hand we didn't have to water as much, but on the other I didn't need to be outside so much... so this blog took much of the fall and winter off. I also obliterated my photos when I switched websites last fall... hence no photos from last year. I could go back and re-edit them all, but that would take an awfully long time, so let's just move forward from where we are now, shall we?

Today is our two year anniversary of living in our house. I remember spending our first spring wandering the yard wondering what was a weed, what was a plant, and why the previous owner left tags on every single bush she'd planted. Two years later, with the help of trial and error and a whole lotta books, I now feel confident in yanking weeds and general upkeep of our landscaping. I even know the names of a bunch of plants that I would have previously called "the green one with the flowers". We have high hopes for the yard this year, it'll be interesting to see just how far we manage to get.




This was our yard after one wind storm last month. I just wanted to have a record of what we are starting with.



Here is the driveway and you can see part of the roof. Trees are pretty aren't they? *rolling eyes* We are contemplating removal of several firs, not only because of the mess, but because of the amount of times we had Gayle sleep in our room over the winter because we were afraid the wind would blow a fir into her bedroom.



The front yard now, all picked up. We even planted some colorful flowers along the steps - if you look close you might even see them.



This is a thumbnail of the panoramic of our backyard, I took a series of 4 shots while standing in front of our kitchen window. I know the big one is going to screw up the page, so I wanted to include a smaller full view.



The main thing I remember about moving into our house was that the star magnolia bloomed the day after we arrived. It's amazing how a blast of white makes the whole backyard brighten. Our bulbs broke ground a few weeks ago, but it wasn't until the flowers burst open in the star magnolia that we knew spring was here for good.

So, there we are, the beginning of our gardening year. Hopefully I'll do a better job of updating, even if it's notes without photos now and again.