Sometimes Work IS Play

It's been a crazy week out here, and that's no understatement.  Monday afternoon we rushed our puppy to a specialty hospital nearly an hour away for an emergency evaluation of acute onset severe neck pain.  Turned out he'd slipped a disc in his neck, but no surgery was warranted (and he's doing very well now).  We returned home that evening, puppy in tow, to discover our youngest cat had loosened a window screen  and escaped.  After 18 or so heart-wrenching hours, he waltzed in the back door unscathed but for a few torn toenails.  Needless to say, we did not get much of anything done around the house the first half of this week.

We're making up for it this weekend, though!  The weather has been gorgeous (sans a spring thunderstorm yesterday morning, which was pretty in its own way), and things around here are already blooming like mad.  It's a fun surprise for us to discover how the yard looks in the spring.  Take a look!  These six photographs were all taken today.

Forsythia (yellow) with what I think is some sort of flowering cherry tree? 

The backyard view from the newly updated swing.

 The backyard view from the newly updated swing.

 

Flowering backyard tree

 

 

Our seedlings are growing nicely.  I now completely understand where the "Jack and the Beanstalk" story came from, because the bean seedlings are huge!

 

 GIGANTIC bush bean seedlings

 

Go tomatoes, go!

Basil!  I'm going to make pesto...and then some pesto... 

Even the herbs outside in the mini-greenhouse are germinating

 

Yesterday and today Nick and I picked the dead leaves up from the front of the house and re-mulched the whole front.  I did not take pictures because it does not photograph very well, but trust me when I say it looks much better.  The other area we are trying to tackle is around the big oak tree, also in front of the house.  There are a few scattered daffodils coming up there, but they are only on the side of the tree that faces the house, and the rest of the area around the tree was crowded with baby trees and shrubby stuff.  I say "was" because today we cut and pulled out all the baby trees, cleaned out the dead leaves, and I planted some bulbs that we dug up from the backyard last fall.  I have no idea if they'll grow, but what the heck?  Nick wants to use rocks on our property to make a circle around the tree and plant flowers (mostly daffodils) inside it.  I think it will look great!  It won't be finished until next year, though, because we want to move the daffodils currently growing closer to the tree.  Apparently you're not supposed to dig them up until about 2 months after they are done blooming, so it'll have to wait.  In the meantime, we can enjoy the daffodils as-is, and you can enjoy this photo of Nick with the colossal root he pulled up:

 

 

We've also been working on the bedframe for the guest bed, but I'll post photos of that when we're all finished.  Needless to say, I'm exhausted!  It's a good, accomplished sort of tired, though.  Plus, we have a whole day tomorrow to get even more done!