Checking In on Checking Things Off

Our list! We are making progress on the to-do list around these parts, which is pretty amazing considering how crazy things have been lately (as always). Birthdays, birthdays and more birthdays, the boys’ birthday party at the zoo, a family wedding in Baltimore, two full time jobs and two kids and general crazy life with playdates and work projects and a million other things. I’m tired. Are you tired too?

We had mulch delivered and Mike replaced the broken wheel on the wheelbarrow so we could move the mulch around. We went with black again this year because we like the contrast and it pairs well with the color of the house and dark wood stain we use in the backyard. We mulched the whole front yard and pruned the shrubs to start. It looks so much better.

The mulching in the backyard is a work in progress. I wish I was further along considering it’s almost mid-June already but we’re making steady progress. And again with everything going on + lots of rainy weather on days we’re home, we’ve done really well considering. The trees are done, the beds on the right side of the yard (looking out from the deck) are done.

The fig trees are coming back - they died back to the ground (as usual)... hopefully we'll still get another crop of figs from the Chicago Hardy fig this fall.

There was so much weeding. This 3 foot wide pile is from like 6 feet of garden along the fence. I just waited way too long and they went wild.

This wasn’t on my shared to-do list but the blueberry bushes are wrapped in netting to keep the birds off our blueberry crop. We’re going to have some blueberries this year!

Also - peonies! It's the end of the season now and they took a beating in the heavy rains we've had recently, but they are still so beautiful.

We also planted flowers in the flower pots. This year I felt like I needed some flowers in the pots on the deck, patio and porch for color (color + flowers = things that make me happy). We bought some flowers at the local nursery and I’m delighted with how everything looks now.

Oliver picked out the black petunias and calls them "ninja flowers."

The heliotrope makes the whole patio smell sweet. It's lovely!

As a flower bonus I picked up an orange and purple primrose and planted it next to the crepe myrtle tree next to the deck. It's an perennial so hopefully it comes back year after year. We had one in our yard when I was growing up and always thought it was such a pretty plant.

On the porch boxes we added in calibrocha and vinca (though the vinca have some sort of blight and I don't think are going to make it) to the pansies in hopes that as the pansies die back the other flowers will be bigger and take over. I’m loving the rainbow of colors from all the different flowers.

Also on the porch the blue pot is back! It used to have a snake plant in it a long time ago that died and has been moved around since. It's a beautiful pot though and I'm happy to have it back out in front with some flowers in it. (The chair next to it is Oliver's waiting chair. He sits in it on the porch waiting for playdates to arrive, family to visit or his neighborhood friends to come outside after dinner.)

Mike also bought deck stain for the deck and pergola, then new gate hinges, wheels and fence panels to redo the driveway gate. It's his next project. We are trying a slightly different kind of fencing panel (same height, but spaced planks) to make the whole thing lighter and easier to move. We’re also redesigning the gate a bit (more on that soon). I'm hoping to get the deck stained soon when the weather cooperates, though in the meantime I'm going to keep mulching and weeding...