Fire Circle Update

Last Weekend we finally got around to clearing our fire circle (which tends to get totally overgrown in the Summer) and we added some much needed improvements! This year Eric put down weed stopper gardening fabric and gravel around the pit, giving it a much more finished look and hopefully cutting down on the amount of clearing we have to do next year. Here are some pictures of the updated look.

Eric working on spreading gravel

Echo supervises the work

Finished and our first fire of the year!

After these pictures were taken we added more gravel and border bricks. It is already a much more pleasant place to hang out. We have plans to put in benches and fix the death trap of a staircase that leads down to the back yard at some point but that might have to wait until next year. In the mean time it's nice to have the back yard transformed in to a more usable space.

A Garden For Me!

I swear I don't even recognize myself. My whole life I have had pretty much zero interest in gardening, especially in growing my own fruits and veggies. My interest in plants kind of gradually snuck up on me, starting when I was in grad school when I began to acquire a few house plants. Well, since getting married and buying a house my gardening interest has exploded and I am super excited about my new raised bed garden that Eric built for me! I had limited success growing some veggies and herbs in containers on my back deck last year, probably because they didn't get enough sun. This year Eric helped me build a 4 foot by 6 foot raised bed in the front yard. I'm hop[ing everything will get plenty of sun there although we'll have to see how it goes once all out tress leaf out. I have big plans to plant all kinds of things in this garden but I am trying to keep it to things that I know are easy to grow like peppers and carrots. So far I moved my mint and rosemary from their pots on the back deck to the new front garden (this should give them lots of room to grow) and planted some radish seeds. Here are some pics of the new garden, I'm pretty stoked about it :-)

Garden in progress

Finished garden!

Mint freshly transplanted to the new garden. It's just starting to come back from the winter. 

Rosemary transplanted to the garden, hope it will grow bigger now that it has some space!

And last but not least, a new blueberry bush that my mom picked up for me at the half off sale Pikes had yesterday. This won't be going in my new garden but we will be planting it out front somewhere

close up of blueberries, so cute!

Spring-A-Ling

Oh goodness, such beautiful weather we are having today! I was inspired by the Springy weather to get outside and work in the yard this morning. I finally broke down and bought a leaf blower which I was totally opposed to until I moved in to this house and realized the MASSIVE amounts of leaves we had to deal with. Today I broke out the new leaf blower and actually uncovered a lot of little sproutlings that are coming up for Spring, so exciting! I am usually more of a Fall/Winter person but I have to admit that I am pretty excited about Spring this year. Here are some pictures of the Spring time happenings around the yard.

Little hosta starting to sprout, and a random mushroom

More hostas sprouting

Azaleas

Our vinca is starting to bloom and put out new leaves like crazy 

Autumn sedum coming back with a vengance

Daffodils in full bloom, they make me so happy :-) 

Lovely

More azaleas

Leaves!

 The thing about having a beautiful yard full of trees is that you end up with a TON of leaves all over the place in the Fall. I'm not going to say this is a downside because I love our trees and I love watching them fall but it does make for a lot of work. I had a rare day off today (aside from a morning meeting with a bride who's wedding I am shooting next year) so I got a chance to get caught up on some much needed housework. I want the house to be looking it's best when we host Thanksgiving next week so in addition to (almost) finishing my Thanksgiving shopping, sweeping and mopping the living room, vacuuming and doing laundry today, I also swept the front and back porches and the front walk (WAY more work than it sounds). Here are some pictures, whee!

Leaves!

Believe it or not, Eric just swept and raked all this last weekend.

Much better

Much better