Weekend By The Yard

We started our Saturday out by visiting a friend who had a yard sale. It was a nice way to start the morning, bobbing and weaving in and out of piles of stuffed animals and old books. I was anxious to start my day.

Not without first trying to get everyone a fresh picture of the baby. (I will disclose here that my entire house needs to be painted, so the outside theme, is peeling, ok?)

Here is try #1.

Here is try #2.

And finally, after shouting "Look a puppy". I got try #3.

After that I just gave up trying to take anymore pictures of her. There is no sitting still.

Here is the wagon, from the yard sale, it was free for the baby. The afternoon was spent carting around ...

The "baby". This baby did everything yesterday. Up and down the driveway, hanging on for dear life on the back of a riding toy. Playing in the dirt. Eating a snack. You name it, she did it.

This is the tree that is preventing me from buying and laying down mulch. Those pesky helicopters are eminent.

Here is the haul for the dump. Not too shabby. See the large branches?

I might have gone a little overboard. Heh. But, aside from the peeling paint, it looks a million times better. TRUST ME.

This is what I dealt with all day long. Gone are the clean, straight lines of my flower beds. The grass has taken over. And not the tiny sprigs of grass that you can pull up easily. It's the grass that requires lots of digging, swearing and kicking up of dry dusty dirt.

The end result is this. Sadly it's about an hour later before it looks like this even. While the landscapers estimate of $800 was outrageous, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it over the five hours I was in the yard, dealing with it.

This is my "state-of-the-art" irrigation system. I only got as far as hooking up the timer and the valves. My plan is to have the front of the house, GREEN this year. Instead of dried up and barren. I will be running two hoses that end with sprinkler heads and both will follow the new lines of the flower beds to strategic locations. Hopefully I can set the timer before I head to my night meeting and then set it again when I go in for the night and each section will get watered appropriately. Sounds good, doesn't it? WE SHALL SEE.

A close-ups of my favorite purple flower.

My sweet bell peppers.

Snapdragons.

Purple is the theme this year (and why don't they make black flowers anyway?)

Strawberries in the making.

Marigolds anyone?