Happy Spring!

The first day of spring was this week, but we've had a VERY mild winter and already a taste of some very warm weather. It was in the 80s all last week. It's also been very dry, but we've finally gotten some rain this week.

Last weekend, we took advantage of the low 80s temps to do some yard/landscaping work. No big projects outdoors this year, because we're working on a big one indoors (more on that later), as well as the adoption. We just did some clean-up and getting things looking nice for summer.

We trimmed a few shrubs that were very mis-shapen and have been bugging us since last summer. Not sure if spring is the right time for trimming shrubs, but they look so much nicer now. (And how awesome to see blooming daffodils already! Only one of these was blooming last weekend, the others all grew more and opened up this week.)

We trimmed off last year's hosta leaves, and found the fresh purple growth just starting to come up. We also dug the leaves out of the rhubarb, and pulled back some the rocks and landscaping felt to find some new growth. They didn't look too good after growing up under the rocks and felt, but luckily they were looking better the next day and even better yesterday when I took these photos. (Not happy about the weeds along the foundation though - need to get those, but they're thistle, so I couldn't just yank them up with my bare hands.)

Sunday afternoon we cleared out last year's weeds and vegetables from the garden, and tilled up the soil a bit. I even got some lettuce, spinach, and onions planted. I think this is the earliest we've ever had any planted. The rain this week brought back a few weeds, but with the bulk of them gone, if we go out every few days and yank the new ones we *should* be able to keep on top of it.

When the garden was planted, I retreated to the shade, cleaned up the brush from last year's daylillies, and pulled the dried flowers off my hydrangea, while the little kids scrubbed the window well cover. I REALLY need to dig up some of these daylillies, just not looking forward to that. So if you are wanting some free daylillies, bring your shovel and buckets over - free to any home! They're the pretty orange-ish ones.

Such a productive warm spring weekend! Now, only if I'd remembered the sunscreen! So hard to think about this early in the season! At least it wasn't too painful.