Neighbor to the Rescue!

I was mowing the lawn when suddenly the mower tipped a bit to one side. I figured I had hit a yard pot hole and kept going. Well, I didn't go far because one of the front wheels had fallen off!

Thankfully our neighbor saved us from having to sport a 1/2 mowed lawn for a week and loaned us their mower.

After I brought the mower back I noticed that our neighbor had his cherry picker out and was trimming his trees. He even offered to come and trim our trees!

With some careful maneuvering the neighbor planted the cherry picker in the backyard and removed the dead branches from the trees.

Ben and I were thrilled! We had been hoping for nearly a year that Mother nature would take care of those branches, but it never worked that way.

Thank you amazing neighbor for trimming our tree and lending us your mower!!

Pesky Wabbit!

"You pesky wabbit!"

Elmer Fudds infamous quote pretty much sums things up. Rabbits have been feasting on my pretty lilies. One day they have gorgeous blooms on them, the next they're dinner for a rabbit.

I started with 10 Lily bulbs. 2 bloomed, the rest got munched on. One lily bloom had these

amazing pale pink and brown spots on it. I went outside the next morning to take a picture of it, and it was gone! The entire stalk and bloom had been munched down to a sad little stub.

I've begun to fight back though. I mixed up a wretched smelling concoction of red pepper flakes, chili powder and garlic. Sprayed it on all my lilies and am hoping that'll teach those rabbits a lesson!

Pre-rabbit dinner lily...

Post Rabbit munching! GRRRRR!!!!

It was only a matter of time...

...until we broke a pipe to our underground sprinkling system! Yes, that's right, every home owners worst nightmare. The thought of digging up feet and feet of their luscious lawn to find that one little leak.

Our own version of Old Faithful (on a smaller scale of course) was not a welcome sight.

Thankfully our broken pipe occurred in a flower bed, so no grass was harmed during the repair.

A few clamps, screws and new pipe did the trick.

Backyard Makeover

Our backyard was in need of a make over. It lacked in a lot of things, especially plants.

So, we took almost all the over grown bushes from the front yard and transplanted them to the back yard. Now we have a nice natural fence between us and our "back yard neighbors." .

This is only the beginning to the make over... I think it's time to go plant shopping!

This is the backyard before we moved the bushes from the front yard.

This is what the backyard looks like now. Hopefully next year the taller bushes will have grown larger and will fill in some of the gaps.

Stone Free!

This is what the flower bed looks like now! Making progress!

Our front yard is officially stone free! Big deal you say? It sure is! We've been wanting to get rid of the ugly, mossy, moldy, grungy white stones that were in our flower beds. They were easy to maintain, I will hand them that, but man were they hideous! We've shot these stones into Timbuktu with our mower and snow blower!

Thanks to Tim, our new found yard helper our front yard is stoneless, zilch, nada, not a stone to be found! WOO HOO!

Next project, move the over grown bushes to the back yard...

This is what the front flower bed looked like when we moved in.

Let there be Light!

After nearly a year, (no, I'm not exaggerating) we finally found new exterior lights! We scoured the town month after month and finally stumbled upon something that looks good and wasn't going to break the bank.

After a quick install, thanks to my handy husband our lights are up and well, illuminating.

If you look closely, you can see the last remaining

original light by the front door. From a distance it

looks OK, but up close it's nasty! It's lost most of it's brass coating, it's rusting, peeling, the glass it beyond cleaning, and

it's home to all sorts of insects.

What is it?

My yard continues to throw surprises my way. I've discovered crocuses, stemless tulips (they're old and tired), hyacinths, Easter lilies, hostas and mums. Plus some other flowers that I don't know the name of.

The most recent surprise is a small tree right outside the kitchen window. When we moved in last year it was full of oval shaped green leaves, nothing out of the ordinary. Then a few days ago something changed... it now has LOTS and LOTS of clumps of white flowers. They smell like a Lilac, look similar to one but according to my Dad who's the Master Gardener, they're not one.

Well, then, what is it? I must know! Any ideas?