Getting dirty

This weekend was full of gardening and other yard work.  I dug up the shrubs in the bed against the garage and set out to prep the bed for some of the native plants I bought last weekend.  I'm determined to get rid of that red pumice, so what did I do?  I dug out all of the pumice from the bed against the garage and added it to the bed against the back of the house!  I will get rid of it eventually...

I got the plants in the ground and officially started my adventure in outdoor gardening!  I've had houseplants forever and never enjoyed gardening - ask my mom.  But there is a great satisfaction when it's your own.  I felt great satisfaction when I got the first plants in the ground. 

Chris got the bird feeder post in the ground - it's replacing the shepard's hook we were using.  This way, we can have feeders on all sides if we want to.  When we went out to more hooks, we also stopped by the bird store to get an oriole feeder.  We're hoping to attract some - Chris has gotten some amazing photos of the orioles at my parents' and he'd love to get some here too.  We're going to put out the hummingbird feeder soon too.  All sorts of activity here!

While I had my camera out, I took some pictures around the house to document what everything looks like this time of year:

It feels so good to lay in the sun!

Latest addition

While I was browsing through Craigslist recently, I found a sideboard for the dining room.  I had been thinking about getting something to replace the speakers and chairs, and I finally found it:

Today I'm going with Gina to a plant sale at the fairgrounds.  I'm hoping to get some more succulents and some native plants to place the stuff in the bed against the garage.  I decided to only shop for plants to go in that bed, because otherwise I would be buying way too much stuff and I decided I'll tackle that bed first, and when life quiets down a bit, I'll start redoing the bed against the house.  Exciting!

Work has been horrible and I unfortunately don't see it easing up anytime soon.  I was close to having a breakdown yesterday, but I managed to keep myself somewhat together. We are scrambling to get the 2011 budget up for users and it's a major production.  That means I've been putting in a lot of overtime which means I'm cranky.  This is why I've decided to take today completely off, and I'll do work stuff tomorrow.  I have to remind myself often to take deep breaths - it actually helps for about 10 seconds :)

Lilacs in full bloom

I love our backyard:

I finished doing the spring cleanup this weekend and I got inspired to start planning out what future gardening I want to do.  I am determined to dig up all the pumice from the beds and to start bringing some more color into the plant selection.  Right now it's the lilac in back, and the bleeding hearts and potentially edible rhubarb in front.  By the way, does anyone know how to determine if my rhubarb plant is edible?  I'm going to bring it into a nursery soon, but I was wondering if any of you knew off the top of your head.

I'm thinking about trying to stick with native plants for the most part and stealing a whole bunch of flowers when we go up to my parents over Memorial Day weekend.

My centerpieces are doing well - for those who don't know, I'm going to spoil the surprise because I'm excited that they're still alive: I'm going to have succulents.  They are growing which is a great sign :)

Spring is exciting!