Yard Update

Yay! The grass is finally coming up. But its growth got majorly slowed this week when it was below 40 degrees and snowing! Yeah, while it was 90 degrees in Dallas, it was 35 with a 29 degree windchill for a couple of days. Yuck! I wasn't planning on winter this early! But it should warm back up and hopefully give my grass some more growing days.

This is the wood from the huge dead spruce tree Ryan cut down in our front yard.

This is our little tree grove in the back yard after Ryan cut out several nasty ash trees, junipers, etc. It looks much improved.

So...after cutting all those trees, we had some branches to haul off. We rented a small trailer and hauled it to a recycling center on Saturday. (It seems you can't just burn stuff like in the country ;) )

And I couldn't resist putting in a picture of my handsome buddy, Buster. He has been my constant companion since I haven't been working. We are going to an obedience class and he is doing stellar.

Labor Day in the Mountains

Well, I figured I might need to post some "more interesting" pictures than my bare front yard ;)

Our friend Brantley drove all the way from Stillwater and we trekked down to Lake City (4.5 hours SW of here to the McCollum cabin. We had a great time in the mountains fishing, hiking, and climbing a 14,000 foot peak (see below)!

This is Big Blue Creek where we fished the first day.

We hiked in about an hour before fishing.
Me and my hiking buddy. He loves the mountains!

Us on top of Uncompaghre Peak! The hike was tough but the view was amazing!

View from the top.

We were just getting started here. It was 3 hours up and 1 hour down.

Finally Done!!! Almost

Well, after multiple weeks of working my tail off in this yard, it is finally (almost) done. A week ago Saturday I convinced my sweet husband to help me till it because I knew this weeny girl was not even trying to wrangle a 550 pound tiller on a slope. So thank you Ryan for getting the hardest part done for me.

Then I spent all week raking out the grass, dirt clods, etc and getting it as smooth as possible.

Finally yesterday I rented a lawn roller (pretty much a round plastic barrel with a handle) to pack it. I made quite a site to all the students who walk by our house as I was grunting and groaning trying to push this 300 pound roller across very soft soil on a hill! But after getting that done I finally was able to seed it and roll it again (this time with no water in the roller, thank goodness). So here is the final result. We got a nice shower in the afternoon, so hopefully my grass is off to a good start!

I went back and looked at the starting pictures of the yard and was pretty amazed at the transformation already.

I can't wait until the grass looks good and I finish the work on the front bed. Also below are pictures of the new barberries I planted in the bed on the street (among the almost dead hollies I will remove soon...yay!!!, and the new shrubs (4 burning bush euonymus and 1 viburnum) in the bed in front of the house.

I only hope I can keep the deer out of my new fescue because I have already seen tracks across the yard!