Farewell Thee Lollipop Tree

Finally!!! We have started to tame the jungle!!!

We worked hard this weekend on raking leaves (yes, we waited until now), chopping down trees, manicuring Grandmother Willow, and making big plans for our little half acre!

Here are a couple "before" pictures so you can see the jungle in all its' glory...

To the left side of the porch, you can see the lollipop tree and the rest of the jungle

There are also some random trees, shrubs, and a holly bush

And here are the afters- after a perilous afternoon involving a chainsaw and a trip to the dump when we had to pull over no less than three times to keep wayward branches from flying out of the bed of the truck...

Hooray! The jungle is GONE!

No more holly tree!

So now what are we going to do?  You are probably wondering why we kept those two random little fir trees.  Well don't worry, since I have skillz I can show you what my plans are.  First we're going to re-plant the fir trees on either side of the stairs.  Then we'll get some hanging plants for the porch.  I'll have to weed and clean up the flower beds before we put down fresh mulch, and of course, some more flowers.  These are my plans for next weekend.  Let's see if I can do it!

I know you are impressed with my paint skills. Just admit it!!  I'll be sure to check in on our progress.  Promise!

Moving on-

We also worked in the backyard by raking and raking and raking and trying to avoid all the creepy crawlies and then shoving leaves into trashbags.  The backyard isn't really done yet so I'll just show you a picture of the aftermath...

Oh! While I'm at it I also wanted to tell you about this awesome game we are playing lately.  We bought the house in August, so we've never been here during the Spring season.  So lately we've been playing the game called "Guess What Kind of Tree/Flower/Plant This Is!".  It's actually been kind of fun to see what's blooming in our yard.  Here's a little peek :-)

I hope everyone's week is off to a great start, and that your thumb is feeling at least a little bit green after reading this post!

~SG

Sneak Peek

First of all, I would like to report that one of the trees in our front yard has exploded into a frenzy of white flowers.  It looks beautiful, but it raises my blood pressure slightly as I am becoming more and more aware of the severe need for landscaping out there.  We literally haven’t done anything aside from pulling up a few trees with a chain and a pickup truck last summer.  So we are in dire need of a chainsaw (goodbye, lollipop tree), a shovel, some pruning shears, mulch, flowers, and some fertilizer.  Joey also gave Grandmother Willow a haircut the other day and she looks much better.  You can see her creeping in the background on the bottom left corner.

Secondly, I finished the first cornice and made asked Joey to hang it last night:

  

It still needs to be tweaked, but I think I like it.  Although I’m sure you didn’t even notice it, because how could you with the

 

HI. I’M A RED CHAIR!

in the center of the picture.  But don’t worry. I already have plans.  I was excited about the red chair but not so much when we opened the box and realized it was neon red.  Didn’t know they made that color?  Ikea does, apparently.  So it’s a little more red than anything else, ever.  But I already have a few ideas to tone it down a little bit.  Such as: adding a pillow of a less offensive color, same with a throw blanket to drape over the back.  Any other suggestions?  And no, I'm not getting rid of it JOEY.

Next up is to finish the other cornice, get it hung up, and take some pictures of all the adjustments we’ve made lately.  Which includes a lot of red.  But I’m okay with that.  And I know my Mom will be too ;)

Hope you enjoy this sneak peek, which I almost didn’t want to do because I’m not happy with how it looks.  But then I decided that I want to keep it real for my fans... :-)

~SG