Yardwork: My new human-powered lawn mower!

I spent a bunch more time in the yard again this weekend. Filled three huge garbage bags full of leaves and brush, cut down and bundled up lots of dead and stray branches, and mowed! I bought a lawn mower first thing on Saturday morning. It's a thing of beauty. I had already let the lawn get way too tall, so it struggled a bit on the tallest, weediest patches. I think it will be fine once I get the lawn a little more under control, but I'm hoping to find someone to let me borrow a weedwacker to tame some of the problem spots.





In other news, my hostas are growing really well. And the south side of my front yard is crazy fern city!





All the yardwork uncovered some new surprises. First, I there's an odd hole in the deck. It looks like there's some kind of electrical cord in it. I wonder if there used to be some kind of built in outdoor lighting there or something.



Noticed a spot on the deck that needs repair:

I also discovered some bleeding hearts growing in the front. Wow!

And is this a calla lilly? Get out of town! I didn't even know you could grow those here. I thought they seemed tropical.

Finally, the most exciting thing that's happened in a long time: As I was digging through all the leaves and weeds and brush in the front yard, I found a drainage pipe! When I bought the house, the inspector told me to extend all my gutters further away from the house, to avoid a wet foundation. He said you can bury the downspouts and have them come out toward the street, but it would be expensive. Anyway, I found this drainage pipe, and couldn't figure out what it was draining. The gutters just empty into the yard. But then I raked up by where the downspout is, and realized it's all rocks up there. There must be some kind of drainage system under the rocks. In farming, my mom and dad would call that "tiling" or putting tile in the fields. I'm going to assume that's what's happening here, and I'm celebrating the lower potential for a wet basement!

Adventures in Yardwork: More Unidentified Growth

More surprises every day in the yard department. I owe Craft Night Kassie two beers for successfully identifying a couple of plants posted last week. The cute little snail guys are now ferns, and the asparagus-looking fingers are hostas. I've never been a big fan of hostas, but I have a new appreciation of them now that I see how green and full they are with zero work from me. My mom thinks the flowering bush in the back yard may be a flowering almond tree. I've never even heard of such a thing. I'm withholding her beer until I have more proof.

This week brought more yard fun. I have one beautiful tulip:


And it looks as though I'm going to see some lilacs soon. This might be the most exciting discovery so far. This bush is very close to my deck. I can't wait to enjoy a cocktail on the deck and smell the lilacs!



But some mysteries remain. Once again, I'll buy you a beer if you can successfully identify anything below! Here's what the bushes in front of my big front window are doing these days. Can't wait to see what happens here!

Two trees are now flowering in the backyard. I'm thinking this one must be crabapple, but I'm not really sure.

And I don't know what this one is, but it's producing lovely white flowers. I think it's especially interesting because of how vertical it is. I was looking through some online tree encyclopedias, but I didn't see any that grew so tall and narrow like this one.

I was especially surprised by this one. These plants are growing along the back fence, and I wasn't even sure if they were intentional or weeds, but lo and behold, a lone flower has bloomed from them.

My spider plant is a little jealous of all the attention his new siblings are getting, so he decided to show off a bit, too.

Pretty Time!

Adventures in Yardwork

I finally did some yard work today. I was out there for two hours, and filled three 33-gallon trash bags full of leaves and brush, and you can barely tell. The real evidence is in the scratches up and down my arms and the thorn that is embedded into my finger. I found lots of interesting things growing and living in my front yard. I didn't even get to the backyard today, but it's in better shape anyway.

I'll buy a beer for anyone who can successfully identify any of the following:

I'm guessing day lillies...

These little guys are just so cute. They remind me of asparagus.

But these are the cutest things ever. What do they think they are, snails? I want to pinch them on the cheeks!

Tulips?

There are a ton of these on the ground under a tree in my backyard. Wouldn't it be cool if one of my trees produced something edible?

I don't know what it is, but I bet it's gonna be real pretty in about a week!

The Handmaidens Spring Fling

Today I went to another craft show, the Handmaidens Spring Fling Craft Formal. Michelle had a booth for Falling Forward, and her stuff is as awesome as ever. There were a lot of impressive crafters showing their wares. Reminds me how amateur I am! I bought a super cute pill case from Pish Posh Paperworks.

Also among my favorites was Maybe You Should Die. I thought about getting this card for Sarah and Sean, but Sarah and I just had a conversation last night about how we're going to keep hanging out the same amount or more even after she's married and has kids.