Bacause baby grass is pretty. And soft. And exciting. (To us!)
P.S. Up there to the left is a nice sized Rhodedenderon (Lolo’s friend Ann got me hooked on those), in the middle-ish is a lilac bush that’s struggling, and to the right is an Azaelia, or however you spell it. (Paige got me hooked on those.) This area used to be a great big huge mound of dirt.
Well today has been a moderately productive day. First I’ll give you your eye candy though! This is our pup Chloe, who is so old in doggie years that I need a calculator to figure it out.
She’s a good doggie. Part rott, part shepherd, mostly mushy gushy teddy bear.
Before Mr. left for work this morning we inspected our new growth, like we’ve been doing (somewhat obsessively) since we started planting seeds and actually growing stuff. It’s an exciting thing for us, watching dirt turn green and then running our hands over cottony soft bright green grass. Aaah. We are so easily amused!
The rain last week washed most of our seed into little piles. This past weekend, Mr. roughed up the soil again and we spread more seed. Today we have GRASS! It’s scattered growth, but still. Grass. Green. Grass. YAY US!
We also planted some of those gargantuan sunflowers in the back corner of the yard. This is where my morning surprise occurred today. I was standing there checking out the sunflowers (which have grown to about 2″ tall in 5-7 days), and noticed two squirrelies romping through the neighbors yard playing tag. Or something. Of course I didn’t bring my camera out, do you guys really want to see pictures of sprouting green stuff every day? But I wish I had it. Man. Do I ever.
This robin looks so proud of himself. Worm hangin from his beak, that ‘don’t mess with me’ look on his face. He’s a tough guy, you wormies better watch out! That second bird, the speckled one, he’s new. I think he looks like a finch, but I can’t find anything on him anywhere. Anyone know what he is? Imma gonna have to paint that one, his pose is just too cute!
Happy Friday! We won’t think about how today is supposed to be an unlucky day. I don’t believe in that stuff anyway. But. Did I tell you what happened on Tuesday? It’s my little mini-drama. Our Friday the 13th was actually Tuesday, the 10th.
After Mark’s surgery, we came home and it was turning into a beautiful warm, sunny day. I decided it would be good to go pick up that new pool I got for Mother’s day, so off I went. It’s not a huge inground pool that comes with a pool-boy or anything (that I really wanted), I always get the scaled back version of what I see after I close my eyes at night. Harumpf.
I spent about 3 hours assembling the pool. For the last three years, we had what I referred to as the “upside-down mushroom cloud” pool. You know, the one they say is “10 feet” but in all reality, when the usable portion of the pool is measured, it’s about 6 feet across. Yipee! Fun to dunk in, but you really can’t swim let alone put a decent floatie in there. Well, you could, but the kids have to stand perfectly still in one spot while you float, and listening to them tell you that “you’re hogging up the whole pool mom!” is not what I call relaxing. But I digress.
The new pool is 15″ across, and it actually is 15 feet. Much better! Yahoo! I was so excited to have the pool set up by the time Caitibug got home from school!
When she arrived, I was just putting the hose into the pool to begin the 3,000 gallon 2-day fill fest. Not ten minutes later, both girls were asking “is it done yet?”, “can we get in?”. Heh.
An hour into it, I checked to see how things were going. Not so good. I’m calling it a “defect in workmanship”, because it seemed that the entire seam that is supposed to seal the bottom to the sides, didn’t. Next step, actually read the directions and watch the video to be sure I set up the pool correctly. It’s not brain surgery, you know. And yes, I did everything right.
So of course, I begin cussing the pool. I bought the last one, and they’re not sold anywhere else around here that I know of, so it’s not like I could (or really wanted to) disassemble the whole dang thing and try to stuff it back in the box. No thank you. I called the manufacturer, who confirmed “this is not normal”. No kidding! Darnit, I was hoping that after it was completely full, the leak would just disappear. Crud.
Do you know what comes next? heh! My box cutter! That’s right. I grabbed my box cutter and began cutting huge sections out of the pool liner to return to the manufacturer. Apparently they need the crucial pieces of their pool back to ensure that I’m not just pretending that my whole day was wasted, that I’m in so much pain from assembling that my fingernail beds are sore, and that what I really wanted to do was set up another pool.
Well since I was mildly annoyed anyway, I took my cutting spree a step further. I decided that instead of disassembling the pool, that I would just shred the liner to bits (FYI that really helps with draining the pool!) and peel it off the frame.
Now the frame sits, assembled, in my backyard. On top of the pool ground cover. In three inches of water. It’s been raining here since Tuesday night! LOL
The good news, all of the flower seeds we planted last weekend are sprouting up. YAY!
The bad news, after I shredded the pool I decided it would be a good time to lay more grass seed in a part of the yard we’ve been landscaping for the past few weeks.
The good news, I bought enough stuff to lay the seed and I did it all myself!
The bad news, the rain washed all of the seed into little puddles, so we’ll have patches of new grass when and if it does grow.
The good news, I haven’t had to water it in 4 days!!!
So how was your week???
😆
We’ve seen this Goldfinch a couple of times in the last week, so I picked up a thistle feeder to get him in a little closer. I’m hoping he tells his friends, and they bring their friends, and so on. heh. They’re pretty birds.
This Cardinal mama is a beauty isn’t she?
This was one of those precious moments this morning, baby all floofed up sqwaking at mom for more seed. I say, get it yourself, it’s right there on the ground next to you ya little fuzzball.
I had moved this feeder up on the picnic table right outside my picture-taking window yesterday. The squirrels were loving it, even with me right next to the window. He looks like an addict, huh? I should drop a Nutaholics-anonymous brochure out there for him.
Then Chickeymonkey realized that they couldn’t get her, and they wouldn’t leave, so she stood right next to the window and giggled for a while, pointing and waving at the squirrely.
Yep, it is. It’s time to paint. I will be painting all day today, beginning with Adriana’s monochromatic portrait. I’ve got my webcam on if you want proof! Really! Truly! I am painting today!!!
Here’s your eye candy, another new bird. This is a White-crowned Sparrow, he’s new to our yard. Kinda looks like he should be referring between the common sparrows and the grackles, huh? I thought so.
Ooh! We just had another new visitor to our yard! Whee! It’s a groundhog!
Ok, going to paint!
