Back Yard

Now that the inside of our house is all set up (though we still have a few pieces of art that need to be hung) we are starting on the outside of our house. In the future, we will get the brick power washed, paint the trim to white instead of polyjuice potion grey-brown, and put up gutters. But in the meantime we are making it livable.

Husband has by hand, Pa Ingalls style at first until we borrowed a chainsaw, cut down 6 trees that were a) dead, b) decaying, c) a waste of space, or d) cracking our foundation. He has also cut those trees into beautiful logs and stacked them into a lovely woodpile. It is just too bad we don't have a fireplace to burn up his hard work.



Then we spent a few weeks stuffing our little trash can with twigs and sticks to be hauled away. Then I read our city's trash policy (yes, for real) and realized that on Friday we can put out "bulky trash" for them to take away. Our trash is picked up behind our house in a little alleyway. So, we set to work. Husband clipped the branches to no longer than 4 feet-ish, and we stacked them and bundled them with twine. I was in big wellies jumping on the piles to get them to lie flat. We had some evil thorny vines that are tangled in the branches and we both suffered many cuts. It took us only about an hour and a half in total to bundle up all the branches and twigs from those 6 trees and put them out for our trash pick up. I feel really bad for the trash guys. I wish I could bake them cookies or something. They hauled away all 12 bundles (many over 4 feet) in one day.

 

I tried to help Husband as much as I could, but he even rakes leaves better than I do! We have all our leaves and sticks and acorns in neat piles around the yard, waiting for another day to be put in bags (some will be kept for compost -we're not that horrible). And today, Husband built me raised beds. We need to put in a plum and peach tree pronto, as well as our raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. I'm serious. They have to go in next week if we want any fruit this year. Our yard looks so much bigger and nicer now that it is cleaned up, and I cannot wait to start gardening. 

Oh yes, that is the one ring..

 We found a friend while raking up leaves!

My raised beds are waiting for plants. I'm still not certain about the location though. I need to watch the sun really carefully for a few days. Our yard is North facing, so sun might be an issue.


 Happy Groundhogs Day. It's nearly spring here in Texas.