Landscape Excitement

So Bear and I want to do a lot of work on the outside of the house. The house itself looks pretty nice, structure wise. We just need some landscaping done. Bear, as mentioned, is a Park Ranger, so that makes him pretty handy and knowledgeable about these things. My father is also an ex-landscaper (he worked in landscaping when I was small) and he's been great with the advice as well. My Dad visits often enough and is always willing to give advice or a ride to the local store for assorted shrubs, flowers and other needs. He has a pick up truck. We don't. It works.

This past weekend, Bear started to clear out the area where we want to build the dog pen out in the back yard.

He started this right when he came home from work, which is why he's in his uniform. He borrowed the chainsaw from his job and began to take the trees down. My son cleared the brush.
The evergreen tree in the foreground is staying. We have a backdoor to our apartment and we plan to fence in under the porch and out up to the hill and to the left of the yard, closer to our neighbor there. In the background you can see some green shrubs, that much to my sadness, we have to take out. Critters always live there and I am sad to see the shrubs go, but Emma needs room to hang out in when we're in the backyard.



That's our Emma on the side of the house. She was going crazy knowing Bear was home and The Boy was outside helping. I was inside cleaning. At that point I felt it was best for me to stay out of the way. Plus, as excited I am for the work, I don't like doing the heavy lifting and what not. Call me lazy. Cause I am. LOL I don't mind planting bulbs, seeds, and things like that. It's dragging trees and branches that bug me. Plus, why have a teenage son if you don't put him to work!

That was all last weekend. Just before the start of Spring. Today, March 20, Spring officially started according to the calendar. It snowed briefly in the Metro NYC area. I missed it, because I don't open the blinds/shades until well after 9 a.m. The folks on the news and some friends on Facebook were complaining about it. It didn't stick or cause any problems at all. By the afternoon it was gone.

Our project for this weekend, really just Saturday is to finish getting the shrubs for the front walk, put out two more window boxes, haul the heavier logs from the backyard and figure out what to do with a load of wood chips we're getting for free this weekend. Most of this has to be done on Saturday because The Boy and I are going to a big Parade on Sunday and we'll be gone all day. Bear will be gone Saturday afternoon, so we have just the morning to get most of this done.



Today, Bear took me the Lowes, because they had roses on sale. We want to plant them in the bed next to the garage. While we were there, I found spring bulbs that were already started and I was very excited about it. I know it sounds silly, but I really wanted to see tulips and other spring flowers in our yard. Now I'm excited to have the spring bulbs in the ground and the summer and fall bulbs beneath them. I'm worried about the roses though. I've never grown them on my own. My Dad is the rose grower in the family and from his past experience I know that they take a lot of work.

Bear also was looking at some trees. We have a sad red maple in the front of the house. It's half dead. We know we're going to have to replace it. That is going to be a big discussion because both Bear and I have our favorite trees. He was looking at a plum tree, even though he previously talked about replacing the red maple with another. I love weeping cherry trees as well as dogwood. I love dogwood trees. It stems from when I was a little girl. My maternal grandparents had a dogwood in their front yard and when I was small I would crawl underneath the branches and play. It was my own fairy ground. I also have a thing about weeping cherry and weeping willow trees. In fact, I picked our place to get married because the site had two willow trees on either side of the gazebo where the ceremony took place. That obsession came from the Disney version of Robin Hood. Weird I know, but it makes me the wonderful, quirky woman I am.

So these are the projects for the weekend. I don't know what, if anything, will get done. I hope at least something will. If I get anything funny from the Parade this weekend, maybe I'll even post those, just to embarrass some of my family members.