Early Spring Yard Work

It's been unseasonably warm around here.  We decided to take advantage of it and get a jump start on some of our yard work.  Since we've gotten the front pretty much done, minus two small spots of planting grass and getting new gravel for the driveway, this year will be spent focusing on the back.

Today I was able to clean out the areas around the side of the house as well as some of the back yard area.  It was a lot of clearing out/cleaning up.  We also raked up the remaining small rocks from the path to where the old hot tub was and put it under the cement slab the garbage can sits on at the side of the house.  I also transplanted a ton of ground cover to this area.  I don't have any before pictures of this part though.  Oops!

Then we spent a lot of time clearing out roots in the back yard.  We have half of the yard grassed already from previous years' work.  Now it's time to work on the other side where the old hot tub deck was.  We've really let it go and you can tell.

Although the pictures may say otherwise, I was helping! haha  I just also try to remember to document these things via pictures so we can remember how things progress over time.  I couldn't have done it without Peter, though.  He's really the muscles behind everything.  

Next week we are hoping to finish clearing out and getting some grass planted around the side of the deck and halfway to the tree in the back.  We want to move the wall back on that side about a foot and aren't sure what we are going to do around the tree, but we don't want it to hold up planting grass where we know we want it.  I can visualize grass here and it makes me happy.  :)  The other side of the yard used to be stones and a big old fenced dog pen.  So if we can fix that up and the front, we should be able to do the rest of the back.  Really, I'm not worried about that as much as I am concerned about the darn hillside.  We are hoping to get that under control this year too, but it grows so quickly once the weather gets nice.  I just have to remember to focus on small steps.  There's always something to do when you own a house, but we've come such a long way from when we first moved in!  

Harvesting Basil

Got basil?

Tonight Peter and I harvested most of our basil and made pesto. We froze it all so that we can have some yummy homemade pesto sauce in the colder months when basil doesn't survive here. I wish I had a place we could even grow some on the windowsill, but the only one that would work is above the kitchen sink. Cadi would knock it down/eat it anywhere else. Unfortunately, the kitchen doesn't get enough sun. A greenhouse window is on my "future home" wish list. Along with a pantry, walk-in closet, and many other frivolous items, haha.

Our rosemary plant is huge as well. I recently found a recipe for a rosemary walnut pesto so I may try that and then make a bunch to freeze if it's any good. We'll have to wait and see.

Springtime

The tulips and azaleas are starting to bloom in our front yard. The splashes of spring are much welcomed after the long winter we had.

We finally dug up this huge area of thorns, trees, and other random plants. We've planted the grass and it's starting to sprout! So exciting! By this fall we should have all lawn on that side! The front is almost done! :)

The beautiful pink phlox in our garden:

This side of the front yard is mostly finished. We just have the small patch of grass to plant that can been seen in the lower left of this picture. Hopefully we'll tackle that this fall and be done with the front.

Our house looks so different than when we first moved in and only gets better with each passing season.

This rhododendron blooms an amazing pink color, but this is its last year in our front yard. It's too big to transplant and just in an awkward location now that we got rid of that flower patch. We figure we'll enjoy this year's bloom and then hack it down- haha.

Last year after Easter I got a bunch of tulips that had already bloomed for about 50 cents - $1 each. I planted them and hoped they'd return strong this year. So far they are doing great!

This year we also decided to try our hand at vegetables. We started with lettuce since lettuce likes the cold and is pretty easy to grow. We got these plants for a few bucks at Home Depot and they've really been taking off. We have tried the lettuce and it's delicious! We'll definitely be doing this each year.

I love each of the seasons, but am always glad for the changing seasons. I don't think I'd be able to easily live somewhere where it was typically always the same weather. Unless maybe that weather was Autumn. :)