Hello Spring!

Okay...

so it is not that exciting yet! 

But - I did stumble upon these little surprises!

There are literally things sprouting all over this yard! 

I can't wait to see what it will be like in full bloom. 

There is a really fragrant bush blooming now ( that I forgot to take a picture of) in the back yard. It has scented the entire area with the light smell of Spring!

I think there have to be hundreds of Peonies coming up! They are all over - and will be such a treat in a month or two. 

Over the weekend I had a crew come to help with some of the landscape work. They edged out some new beds for me. 

I need to get some mulch delivered now - but already I think it has made a huge difference! Just limbing up the big cedar seems to have brightened up the whole yard!

Once the mulch is in, and the flowers start to grow, and I get a new flag up, and I get the siding power washed, and I get the new shutters ......well, the list goes on and on. 

Slowly but surely we are making progress. 

B

Grunt work in the Garden is never Glamourous!

But...someone has to do it! 

We have a problem with the grading of the yard. The old patio was sloping toward the house, and a couple of the gutter downspouts had no extensions - so they emptied right at the foundation. 

The combination of these two things creates a nice puddle in the corner of the crawl space every time it rains! 

So - I had Brian from Bone Dry come out and check out the crawl space, and Julio from Terraforma come out to make recommendations for the grading. 

Thank goodness I have great resources to call - because I would be lost when it comes to some of this stuff! 

Both guys said that the old patio had to go!

It was too small anyway, and not very attractive. So I pulled it out ( truth be told, my wonderful husband pulled up the blocks, I just hauled them away.) 

Once the blocks were out, we raked out the dirt and tried to slope it away from the house. Julio said that we will need a ton ( literally - not the expression meaning: a lot) of crush & run. Once we get that sloped properly, and draining, we can get new patio stones and place them. 

I moved the blocks to stacks in the backyard. There are a  bunch of them, so I made a path to the back of the shed, a small stacked wall and a little landing area. 

Oh - but wait ...

To top off the "Never Glamourous" tasks of the last couple of days, the highlight, the big event, the woo hoo moment .....

Permit filing!

I know - it's not fun, but it is necessary - and ...it's done! 

Now Fan Electric can come in and upgrade my panel from 100 to 200 tomorrow. 

Once that's done - the HVAC ( ductwork run today) will be hooked up, and the plumber will get to work. 

It will start to be more exciting very soon - I promise!