Yard Projects

The coming of Spring never ceases to rejuvenate and excite me. As the weather warms, I feel myself wake up from what feels like a murky winter blah (isn't it good I live in Georgia and not further north!?). All that to say, our family has enjoyed being outside and working in the yard. Last weekend I asked Justin to plant some hollies that have been waiting months in buckets to find a home in the ground. He headed to the fence where we would plant them, and when I went to check on the progress this is what I found:

Justin is nearly professional at rabbit-trail tasks. You see, the hedgerow near where the new hollies would go was overgrown, so he clearly could not plant the hollies without first removing all the privet. And if he is removing privet he really ought to put it to good use and make a fort. And so I kissed the holly idea goodbye and laughed to myself while being thankful the kids would have a good time.

But do you know what!? Maybe it was my little jeering that motivated him, or maybe he is simply that awesome, but Justin DID get the hollies planted after all, WHILE also finishing the fort. At least most of the hollies are planted...a few are still in buckets, but there were a lot so I'll give him the credit.

What appears to be a big brush pile is really... An amazing fort!

And at this exact moment the kids are excitedly getting in their pjs to go sleep in the fort while I hold Patrick as he drifts off to sleep. Then I'll put my feet up and watch Parks and Recreation while Justin gives the older kiddos a beautiful childhood memory... It's a win win in my book :).

While Justin wielded a frame out of privet sticks, I was playing with some of the kids and their friends in our rose garden (though I can hardly call it that anymore since the roses are not doing so well). Our fountain was broken so I decided to entertain the children while getting work done. "Who wants to pull rocks out of this big hole!?" They were so excited, and by the end they were oh so muddy.

Even this little guy was covered in mud (and eating it too... Yuck).

Later in the week I put a new pump in the bottom of our cleaned out hole, and Silas and Patrick helped me refil it with the rocks.

A fresh load of pea gravel went over everything. Then in a 30 minute window squeezed between school and karate, the kids went with me to pick out some containers to make our fountain.

I plopped them down over the tubing and Ta Da!

Our new fountain. (So, there is a pond under/within the rocks so all the water dribbles out of the containers and back down to the pump.)

The pond is holding up well too! I'm pleased to report that no guests have fallen off the bridge while coming to the front door, though I do need to hide the pond nets so the kids' friends can't catch the fish (we lost one poor little fish to being roughly played with... That was quite sad, especially for Vera whose fish it was). It feels good getting some projects knocked off the list! And feels even better to do it with the warm sun and a cool breeze.