Gardening, painting and bugs, OH MY! . . .

I have worked my tookie (my nice word for ass) off on my house these past few weeks. Our home is by no means a show home, but I try to make it presentable. A little money in paint and landscaping goes a really long way as long as you take care of the small things. The outside took a beating this winter and living near a well traveled road makes it awfully dirty. I power washed a month or so ago, and for the last couple weekends I have been painting the porch railings and uppper trim but I still need to conquer the porch floor which I do not look forward too.

This weekend I went outside and found millions of weeds popping up in the beds around the house due to the horrible rains we have been getting. I have these little skinny planters between the house and the side sidewalks which were now terribly overrun with weeds. I worked on the 2 longest and removed all the landscape rocks, pavers and brick borders, laid down new weed fabric then put everything back. This included picking rocks out of dirt and weed mess for hours! It was back breaking, filthy, tiring and sweaty, but man it looks good! (My nails took a real beating!) I also transplanted some big ol' hostas and filled in some sparse areas. I love to work in the yard because you can always see the difference in the end. McCartney loves to help, so I hope I can foster some love of gardening in her also. If I could just get her past the bugs . . .

I wish we had a bigger peice of land, I would love to grow more of our own food. With the small backyard it is nearly impossible. We do have some container tomatos and they look fabulous and are sprouting tomatos already. My red onions (that I planted in an old recycling bin) look like they are doing well, and this year I planted a raspebrry bush in an old washtub and it is getting huge with all this rain.