Yard Work

This past weekend was a long weekend for us here in Canada.  Three glorious days, where in the past, it has always snowed, or rained.  This weekend, neither happened.  It was glorious.  Not warm, but great weather to get some outdoor work done.

Our summer only lasts a couple of months here - July & August.  With our third babe coming August at some point, I've been envisioning our summer being spent primarily in our backyard.  The picture in my mind involves kids splashing in a wading pool, us all eating popsicles, and my feet up in a chair.  Noyone is screaming, or crying.  It is rather idyllic.  Involved in this image was the idea of having some play stuff for our little people back there.  Being married to a carpenter, I tend to dream in what can be built and quickly decided a playhouse should become part of the image.

What I didn't account for was cost.  Friday night found us (er Nate) digging holes for the posts where the playdeck would be constructed and taking out one of our trees that died a couple of years ago.  Nate loved it so we gave it a year to see if it would come back.  Sadly it didn't.

 But Saturday morning Nate called from the store, and we both decided that the cost wasn't worth the few years the kids would enjoy it.  He came home and we got to thinking about what else we could do to the yard.

We had a wooden bin in our backyard for garbage that was never used.  Nate took down that portion of the fence so an additional flower bed could be built.



Sunday we spent the morning at the Garden Centre.  There truly is not a better place to be.  Aidan started getting upset, and we were surprised to see it was nearly his naptime and we'd happily been walking around looking at plants for two hours - oops!

Home we went and set to work.  I cleaned up our flower beds, and set to work planting our new aquisitions.  Grace spent her time collecting ladybugs, and Nate built a new fence, a flower bed, and trimmed all our trees.  Aidan slept through it all - even when Nate was using a chainsaw.  I went up to check on him and he was fast asleep on his floor with Snuffy over his head :)

By the end of the day we were all tired, but really happy with our new space.

Nate rebuilding the fence and creating our raspberry patch.



We now have our very own Raspberry (& one blueberry!) patch.  We have a new Lilac bush purchased with our daughter in mind - it's pink and called Tinkerbell :)  We also have two strawberry plants, and new mulch.  Mulch just make the bed look so much better.  The kids plastic play tower we already owned was moved to where a tree had previously been.  It is also now where the playdeck was to be built.  The kids are playing on it alot more already now that they can climb onto it from our current deck.

My backyard image of our July & August perhaps looks even better.  Amidst the splashing, the cool drink drinking, there will also be some fruit picking (and veggie picking - we have carrots & onions back there too!).

Fun (& relaxing) in the sun to come!