Yard Work

I don't often find time to do yard work, but the jungle was getting out of control and I decided I should tackle it before we go out of town for 10 days. So yesterday, I enlisted the help of the kids and we got quite a lot accomplished.

I mowed the lawn while Kyle ran the weed whacker along the fence. The girls pulled weeds from my horribly overgrown garden, and then we all pulled out some cinder blocks that some previous owner "planted" along the fence. I say planted because they were sunk about 2/3 of the way into the ground and then the cavities were filled with soil and trees and things were growing up out of the cavities. I thought they were ugly and they got in the way when mowed, so we removed them.
Here are a couple pictures of the jungle that the girls weeded for me. I had to help them a little as some of the weeds were quite tenacious. As I was pulling for all I was worth on these weeds, I imagined weeds disappearing from someone's garden on the other side of the earth!


























When all the weeding was finished, we discovered some plants that had been put there intentionally. I am terrible with plant names, so I'll just show you the pictures...












A touch out of focus, but pretty none the less. When I planted it, this was one small plant, now it has taken over a huge part of the garden. I wish it would take over a bunch more, as it is very pretty.












The girls surprised me with this for Mother's Day last year. I came home from work, and there it was planted in my garden. It is starting to climb up the trellis, but I didn't realize it had flowered until we uncovered it from many weeds yesterday.


















You can see a bit more of the pretty purple flowers and the trellis, as well as the lower thing next to it. It shoots up these stalk-like things and just generally looks nice.












Here is an overall view taken from a spot close to where I took the "jungle" picture. It looks so much better.

Here are a few pictures of the rest of the flowers around the house. I did not take pictures of the rest of the lawn work we did, as my back was killing me, and I got into something I was allergic to. I took a shower, then Benadryl and was then in no condition to do anything but sleep.












This is my Fushia plant that my mother-in-law bought me for Mother's Day this year. I sure hope Jeff remembers to water it while the kids and I are away! My grandfather always has beautiful, overflowing hanging baskets with Fushia plants. I have always wanted one, but I do not have a green thumb and forget to water things. Since this one is visible from the driveway when I pull in, I never forget to water it, or have Sarah do it.


















These rose bushes were here when we bought the house. They try to overtake the sidewalk, and Jeff complains every summer that they are attacking him when he tries to get into the car. So every fall I cut them back almost to the ground, thinking that maybe that will tame them a bit, but every summer they come back bigger and more full of roses.












Here is a "closer up" of one of the flowers. My camera is acting squirrelly since I dropped it a couple weeks ago. Now it only takes good pictures when it wants to, and often I find corrupted files when I go to upload my pictures. Very frustrating!