Ready for Spring

It's hard to believe that my front yard was covered in snow, just a couple of months ago.

Since now, it looks like this.

On Sunday, I decided to jump into cleaning up in the front yard for Spring.

The lawn was mowed and edged.

I trimmed the bushes and trees...

and we weeded the flower beds to get them ready for planting.

That little green bush you see below, is rosemary that I planted about a year ago. I wanted to see how it did before I planted more and since it's doing well, I'm going ahead with it.

That ceramic mushroom below, to the right just appeared in my yard one day, so I adopted it.

It's guarding my young rose bushes now.

On the other side there's some lavender and a few more rose bushes.

The garden beds look kind of empty right now, but they were full of nothing except weeds when I bought the house, so it took a long time just to get them in the condition that they're in now.

The lavender and roses were put in about 2 years ago and eventually, I'll plant bulbs and more flowers, but I wanted to get a feel for what the garden wanted first.

Sadly, one of the roses died over the winter, so the first thing I'm planting this year are daises, in it's place.

On the other side of the wall Periwinkle is growing.

The first flower bloom of the season :)

I also fixed up the rock area in front.

As I was raking the rocks, I hit something hard and started pushing some out of the way to see what it was.

I discovered that there was more flagstone cemented in underneath.

My guess is that the whole front was like this, but "the brown paint people" (as I refer to them now) must have thought it would be a great idea to throw a bunch of dirt and rocks on top, instead of fixing it up.

Ugh.

Those rocks are awful! They go everywhere... down the driveway, into the street, into my flower beds... and besides, desert landscaping does not belong up here in the mountains. It looks completely out of place and everyone either has grass or "natural mountain landscaping".

Well, just about everyone. The neighbors to the right of me have a yard covered in rock and only rock, because the people before them wanted something low maintenance. I keep hoping the new people will change it out, but they seem to like it, darn it.

Well, enough of that rant.

Since we're already out here, I'll show you the areas of the yard that you haven't really seen yet and some of the other work I did.

I don't think you've seen my little garage before.

Now you can see why Clarence won't fit in there.

It's tiny.

They weren't planning on 1950s size cars in 1930, that's for sure.

I would love to know what the original garage door looked like, but I have an idea, looking at old pictures online.

Going down the driveway, you'll see a little path back to the front of the house....

and from here you can see the little porch off of my office/ sewing room, the side entrance to the kitchen and the little steps into the backyard. More on that later.

On the side porch, the railing is not original to the house and needs to be taken down, before it falls off.

Eventually, I'd like to enclose it so that I can have the door open and let the dogs out there when I'm on my computer or sewing.

I love the little gate :)

The only original outdoor light fixture left on the house.

Isn't it cute?

The door into my office and both porches need paint jobs badly. That'll be happening as soon as we get past the last frost and before the rainy season. Probably sometime in May.

Moving past the side entrance to the kitchen is a little door about 3 feet high. I have yet to figure out why it's there.

And here's the steps that lead into the backyard.

That scary project is next on my list and I have a lot of plans for it.

Right now, it's a disaster, so we're not going down there today.

Off to the right of the garage....

Yesterday, I moved the wood pile from the right to the left, because I plan on putting another birdbath and bird feeder on this side of the house, along with flowers and herbs, so that I can have something pretty to look at when I'm in the kitchen.

The little path leads to my compost pile that I started about two years ago.

See that brownish orangish thing in the above picture, behind it?

That's the base to the original sink, that I found behind a bunch of brush that I cleared out.

I'm hoping I'll eventually find the top part and put it back, since it matches the tub, that's still in there.

Another "What were they thinking?" that I'll never have answers to.

Anyway, here's the planter underneath my dining room  window. 

The Irises are coming in nicely :)

And lastly, the view before I went inside to get dinner ready.

Ahhhh..... it feels good to have that all done, but boy, am I sore!

Later this week, it's supposed to rain, so I'll be finishing some indoor projects.

What are all of you up to this week?

xo

rue