The Back Yard "Before"

As promised I have finally uploaded some pictures (well .... one picture) of my back yard "before" the transformation. There are a few key items that I wanted to point out in fear that you would miss the best bits.

A: This is a lovely example of the overgrown madness that was left by the previous owners. This was originally one half of a matching set until ...

B: The second half fell over under its own weight.

C: These are some super cute flower pots generously purchased by my mother-in-law on her last visit from Holland. She and my husband took a trip to Home Depot one day while I was at work and I came home to a pansy delight in the back yard. It was great - but as previously mentioned we are lazy people and it didn't last long. Notice the total lack of flora currently in the cute pots.

D: We purchased these hedge clippers during our first spring in the house - if only we had used them we might not have been in this mess.

E: Can you believe we recycle? GO EARTH!! :)

F: This DRUM can is my husband's main contribution to the outside decore. Notice the rust (perhaps he thinks this makes it an "antique").

SIDE NOTE: While adding the labels to my photo I was overwhelmed with the most amazing feeling that I was just like Bill Cosby in Picture Pages. If only I had the magic musical pen it would have been an 80's dream come true! (The addition of some slouch socks and a slap braclet would have sent me over the top!)

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Have you had your shots?

I just wanted to share with you - the scariest thing I've had to do in a very long time...

This season marks the second spring that my husband and I have spent in our new house. Last year we didn't pay too much attention to the front and back gardens for a few reasons.

1) We had just dropped a disgusting amount of money on buying the house and needed to save up again for awhile before taking on any big, unnecessary projects.

2) The gardens were still holding up pretty well from the previous owners (an older retired couple with enough time on their hands to make themselves a pretty sweet set-up including two apple trees, a rose bush, some vegetables and more flowers & bushes than any human could ever need)

3) We're way to lazy to do anything as constructive as gardening.

4) Did I mention we're seriously lazy?


So in our first 12 months living here the biggest change we made was a lovely garden gnome - which we placed in the front to greet all our new neighbors! Of course, the gnome isn't even ours; it belongs to our roommate (thanks Dawn!) but still. The problem now is that after a year and a half of not tending to all the lovelies that the previous owner left .... our yard had become a jungle. I'm not exaggerating here folks; it was scary to walk from our back door to our gate. I'm pretty sure there would be at least a dozen shots you would want to get before even stepping out the door. There were very few brave souls willing to take the risk and I was not one of those people.

I'll post some pictures later but to make a long story short - I pulled out the necessary tools from our shed: rake, shovel, hedge clippers etc. and prepared to attack! But when I picked up the gardening gloves that had been sitting in the dark, cold shed all winter ... I froze. Let me explain exactly how the thoughts in my head evolved:

Do I really want to stick my fingers in these things? What kind of ooey gooey thing might have crawled up one of the fingers and made itself a home? A bee? A Wasp? A beetle? A spider?? Surely there is a Brown-Recluse just waiting for my juicey finger to come creeping up inside. And then what? My husband is at Home Depot (God only knows how long that trip might take) so I'm going to get bitten by a Brown F'ing Recluse and no one is going to know! And what's worse ... once he does get home, who knows how long it might be before he finds my dead body lost in the jungle that is now our backyard!!

Now... I could have just cut the hedges without gloves - but seriously - these hands are far too delicate for that jazz. I'd rather risk the deadly spider bite than get a blister. But it took me a solid four-minutes of internal struggle to come to that conclusion. Who knew gardening was so dangerous?

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