Again We Have To Clean Up Our Yard!

Some of you know how nice our property is kept, we view our property as our
investment!!  But our neighbors have no clue!   Let me put it this way, if you go
to a nursery and see weeds, bugs, dead rodents and poorly kept property do you
stop and buy plants there??   Or even going to a garage sale and see the
property full of junk, unmowed or even a toilet in the front yard do you stop?

We have had many folks stop to tour our yard and when the neighboring trees drop
their junk in our yard, do you honestly think we want to show it off??   If we do we
explain what it takes to keep the property nice for everyone to tour.

Then there is the holidays and you want your property to look nice for your visitors but
yet again your yard gets trashed!!   Today our yard was mowed and picked up, which we
have had to do for over a week due to the neighbor's to the north have maples and right now
they are dropping their seeds.

These photos were taken this evening, it just took a few seconds for our yard to become a mess!!

Here is what our yard should look like, I spent the past 24 hours working to get our
yard looking nice for Mother's Day!

I hope you have a Happy Mother's Day, you know what I'll be doing on Sunday.  Yep,
cleaning up the yard again.    If you noticed the plastic on the veggie garden bed, we have to
keep that covered or it would be covered in fir needles.  Also the east side is covered by
fir needles and we have to vac that up weekly so our dog can use her area.  We have to keep
her out of certain areas due to the sap that comes out of the trees.   Let me tell you these trees haven't had proper care since they were planted.  No regular watering and no regular trimming or wind sailing.  For the past few years our yard is covered with fir needles which makes it hard to garden.
Since our neighbor do not care for their yards we are now forced to use chemicals.  They don't have grass but weeds.  This year I have dug up more dandelions and thistle than I have ever had in the past 30 years.   I am constantly on the roof blowing off the mess to save our roof from having to be cleaned.   So much for our property values.....did I mention the toilet in our neighbor's yard??

I believe one person put it nicely at one of our garage sales,  "Your property is a breath of fresh air!  What is wrong with your neighbors?  You would be welcome in our area!"

I spend more of my time cleaning up our yard than I do enjoying our beautiful yard.


Yes our neighbors know about their trees as they have gotten letters about them!

Here it is after June 15th and we are still picking up Maple seeds and starting to pull the fir and maple seeds that have sprouted.  Plus pulling the dandelions and thistle that have sprouted.

Earth Day 2019

Today was a great day to clean out the greenhouse and clean the Plexiglass from all the sap, needles and pollen coming out of my neighbor's tree.  Twice a year we have to clean it to keep it looking great.

Once every is out then I can use a little bleach water to wash down the walls inside and out.
This year I decided to move the shelves from the back wall to the east wall, then move the rain barrel and the smaller half barrels.  If I don't like it then next year I'll move it back.  Change is a good thing!  Next is putting new plastic on the shelves and moving the plants back.  Then I can start the new brugmansia seeds in the pop bottles.  We have 8 seedpods from last year. 

I also started cleaning out the rain barrels,  4 done out of the 13 we have here. 

April 20, 2019 Can't You Read??

Yesterday afternoon we had a man show up at our door, he stated he was in the area spraying for ants
and wanted to know if we needed his service.   My dear husband asked him if he could read?  He blew past three signs to come to our door.  The man stated he was to busy looking at our yard but no excuse!!  If you don't have an appointment don't come to our door!!!    Plus, do you think we have ants with how our yard looks?  You are wasting our time as we know what we are doing here!  NO ANTS!!    Ya just make yourself look bad and if you are treating our neighbors properties, don't bother us!!   Oh yes, we have seen the trucks in the hood and we truly know why you are here.....look how they keep their yards!!! 

It's as good as one of our neighbors using spray just minutes before their Easter company arrives??

Ya know you can't fix stupidity!!!

April 21, 2019 Let the Blooming Begin!

All our hard work is starting to pay off!!  We are seeing the yard come to life and
flowers are starting to bloom!  Here is some early photos of what we see in bloom.

This past week we were able to get the brugmansia in their summer place, will move them if 

they are in the wrong place.  Moving them in the rain isn't a wise move!!  But they are done and the Eppie cactus are all hung in their summer home.

March 9, 2019 / Spring projects

Today we started working on the yard, a bit early and the temps were a brisk 27 degrees when
we got started around 9:30am.  It was nice to see the truck pull in and we were ready to roll.
Since Allen had surgery late last night he sat the morning out and did some work inside  So I
started on the front and had a request for photos.

The first load of mulch
15 cubic yards.   The driver did great keeping it
all on the tarps!!

Before photos: 

As you can see the mulch is about gone and we have learned every three

years new mulch needs to be added.

After photos:

We work the outer edges and leave a space to run the wheel barrel along, this is 

done so we don't run across the grass and kill it or leave ruts.    We stopped around 4:30 pm

so clean up could be done and will finish the front today.   I have around 10 more wheel barrels 

to finish the front yard.  Then it's off to the back and the last 10 cubic yards of mulch will arrive

around 2 ish.   Yes that is 25 yards of mulch to hopefully do the yard.  Out back we have a circle

bed and last year we added some black mulch to add a difference in color.   So this year we are

going to be doing the front oval bed the same way beside the area at the curb will also be black.

More photos to come.