Projects... part two

The next couple of projects we attempted were outside.

Luckily we have two wee helpers - Clyde shoveled, Will pushed Jack around in the stroller, Clyde pushed Will as he pushed the stroller, and Will swept.

So, our front yard has a couple different flower garden areas. In the four years we've lived here, only the best and brightest flowers have survived my attentive care - a beautiful rosebush, some day lilies, and a yellow flower type plant whose name I know not. So I decided to reward them by uprooting each and every one and forcing them to co-habitate in one flower garden area. The big task was moving the rosebush - seen here in its bushy glory last fall.

Here it is more recently, all pruned and semi-dug out. I stretched the 'digging out' process over a couple of days, mostly so that the last day of work coincided with my dear mum coming over to help me. We took turns digging the rosebush out and digging the new hole and (with some help from Chuck) we got it moved into its new home.

Over here! I wish my mom had given me the memo to wear cute clothes for gardening, not a baggy t-shirt and athletic shorts.

Here are some fairly poor quality shots of the progression of the front garden area: see that ugly big bush in the top left picture? Yeah, that's gone and now the rosebush is there. And the day lilies used to be in one big circular grouping, but Nicole and my mom split them up and stretched them out a bit. And we moved the yellow flower plant from next to the ugly bush over to the left.

So, now that my flowers were concentrated to just one rectangular area that would need weeding, the question became what to do with this funny little quadrant - and my answer came in the news that Chuck's parents were coming up to visit for a couple days at the beginning of April: tile it for a front patio!!

So I sweetly asked Chuck and Pops to recreate their magic from the backyard a year and a half ago, and they even more sweetly agreed.

And once again Clyde was there to help shovel :).

Chuck and Pops worked really hard and got it done that same day.

And now we have a beautiful patio, just waiting for an outdoor swing or glider so that I can sit in luxury as I watch the boys ride bikes in front of the house!

And finally, for some reason I decided that even though I find it fairly difficult to keep flower-y plants alive, I should still try my hand at vegetable-y plants.

So Chuck and his dad built me a couple of awesome garden boxes in the backyard and filled them with a compost/top soil mixture.

My plan is to attempt tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers this year. Pretty much if I end up with at least one edible bit of growth, I'll be thrilled.

And that concludes the random slew of projects that have been recently tackled around the Izatt home. We've spent the last month recovering from that burst of productivity with lots of lounging around :). Thanks Nicole and Grandma Pam and Pops for all your help!!