Getting our Hands Dirty

A simple summer dinner with garden kale and radishes

 My wonderful husband made me a second garden box this year. We did a trial box for the last two years and it did fantastic, yet just not enough room to plant! Our radishes have quickly produced early summer and have now had a good helping of peas, beans, and tomatoes. The carrots didn't even sprout which is odd since the weather has been very warm...maybe too warm? We are sad to say that our raspberry bushes got sprayed from BPA that owns the land behind us. They were careless and just oversprayed and killed the one tree that shades our backyard along with the blackberry and raspberry bushes. This year we planted two plum trees, but as they were growing we couldn't figure out why one of the plum trees had such tiny plums while the other was growing much bigger. The nursery mislabeled the tree and we actually have a cherry tree! This is not good as now we may have to get two more trees next year (one plum and one cherry) so they can cross-pollinate! We've also planted three blueberry plants out front to make sure they are not sprayed through the fence out back.

 

Reina was part of gardening club at school that meets twice a week for about 4 weeks at the end of the school year. She came home with various seeds to plant. She showed me the rock she painted that is a squash face as one of their activities. They line the path to the school now. Her favorite day was when they made fairy gardens. Reina and Baelor have also been raising tadpoles. It's fun for them to see the little legs start to form...and for us parents too!

Papa Will's garden exploded with kale and cabbage

The kids ate Mummi's blueberries daily. Me too!

This past year we've had some really harsh wind storms. Nearly every house in our cul-de-sac got new roofs within a 2 week time frame, including ours. How's that for timing?!?

Since the weather became warm, summer weather by May, the kids jumped on the trampoline nearly every day. We have really tried to implement potty-training with Baelor so he often jumps in the nude. And Reina thought it was fun to go along with Baelor's look. I made Baelor keep his diaper on until after the picture, otherwise he often goes commando for easy access to pottying on the grass. The neighbors have found him a time or two dozen times in their backyard naked. Let me remind you they only have girls.

We sold our old trampoline with no net and rusted springs for an updated one from our friends who are moving. Hooray for safety nets!

My favorite flower is the peony, although sadly their bloom is short lived. I always have to take a picture when they bloom in the yard! I also like hydrangeas.

I wanted to revamp the front porch. Since the hose cover Paul made for me last year out of pallet wood looks rustic (which turned out just as I envisioned), the chairs just looked too drab against the bold red door I painted last year. I wanted to help balance out the bright door and figured it needed a contrast. So I sanded and painted the chairs black and found accent pieces at Goodwill. (Pillows $10/pair, lantern $5, toolbox $2)

I was not really ever happy with the pallets that looked red instead of orange like the can showed, so I had some random green paint and decided to update the back deck a little. It took way more time than expected but I am pleased with the new color and the outdoor white West Elm pillows I found second-hand.

For Mother's Day, Paul promised to make a fire pit. We had a pretty ugly corner out back that was mostly filled with weeds, stray flowers and an ugly metal arch from our wedding. It basically was where I'd throw compost. I should have snapped a before picture to show really how ugly it was. This was a major task because the ground is very hard and rocky AND digging up sod is a very arduous task. Since grandpa Guinn has retired, he's helped out here and there for us more often than we should allow him. He really wanted to help us out. It took two days of pulling out all the plants and sod and creating a dirt plot. The only work I did was spay-painting the perimeter of the firepit area.

Then it took at least two more days of breaking up the dirt and leveling it out to make it a flat space, since our backyard is on a hill.

Baelor was right there with daddy and grandpa for hours helping out with the tools. He's such a good little helper!

Next task was determining how big of a firepit we wanted and buying the stones. Luckily, Paul got a break because I made him let the guys working at Lowe's do the hard work. He really needed a break! Luck would have it that right after buying the stones, the missionaries were coming over for dinner so we put them to work carrying the stones from the car to the back corner. Paul even had to put up a stone retaining wall. Here's the next step in the progression.

I found a cool bench design online that had directions. I was hoping Paul would be up for the task. He not only did a great job, but had to tweak some of the flawed directions- what a smart and awesome guy. We are both happy how it turned out! We added white stain and some gray outdoor paint stripes from a discount can of paint.

It will be nice to add some nice shrubbery around the area, but due to a baby being born in just a few days, we'll have to finish up after baby comes! I'm very proud of the hard work Paul did with making this area...such a big change from the weedy corner that had no purpose.