Yard. Work.

A mass migration of Easter guests is coming, and for some reason, I actually looked at our front yard, as though seeing it through the eyes of a visitor.

AAUUUUUUGH!!

It's hard -- OK, it's impossible -- to stay ahead of weeds in this climate, and I'm really OK with kind of a casual natural look. But it did look like the house of people who've ..... had a rather difficult year. And there were things that I had not only ignored this year, but ignored ever since we moved in 8.5 years ago.


Like the dead fronds on these palm thingies. We actually did not want to trim them the way some people do, which is to denude the bottom each year and raise the new growth by yearly increments until it looks like a tree. But taking out dead fronds keeps the live ones healthier, and so this long not-done job thinned the plants out an awful lot. But that was an awful lot of dead material. FIVE packed wheelbarrow loads. It's not a big wheelbarrow, but, still.



Did some edging with the electric edger. Some other edging work required a hatchet.



Larry had to interrupt our edging program to do a fire ant treatment. The white powder is there on a fire ant nest, to kill them. I really really hate fire ants. Anyone who's ever endured the stinging, itching misery of fire ant bites hates fire ants.


I've cleaned up the paving around it, but this hard-to-use patch of quasi-garden under the stairs will stay as is until we get something that can survive in almost no sunlight. Weeds obviously are OK with it, but the plan is a nice flowering shrub surrounded by rocks.

In the background you see our exciting new doormats! Sprucing up is all work and no play if you can't buy something.


This tree planted itself in the bottom of an unused planter. I don't know what it is, but I like trees, so I pulled it out, filled the planter with dirt, and replanted the tree. A few prunings of its scraggly shoots and twigs make it look more like an intentional planting than like a weed that grew in an abandoned container. I might find something similar to put in the other empty planter. Tomorrow. If I have time. Guests start arriving tomorrow evening and there's lots more to do than that, so we're taking the casual approach.

My muscles are sore, which means I've done a good job. Having sore muscles is like carrying around a clipboard. It means you're really accomplishing something, whether the results bear that out or not!

Joyous Easter to all!