If you've found anything crazier in your yard, I want to hear about it!

This morning I took a walk around the perimeter of the yard because I wanted to see what was growing.  I found 3 peony bushes that had sprung up all the sudden - they pretty well disappear over the winter, but they were a couple feet tall already and I hadn't seen them before!  yay!  i love peonies!  Then, at the veeerry back of the property, I saw some mosaic thing in the dirt kind of wedged between 2 tree trunks.  From what I could tell, it looked like a monkey made of glass mosaic!  i couldn't get it to budge.  When Billy woke up, i told him that I had something cool to show him after he got some coffee in him, but as soon as I said "mosaic monkey" he was like "let's go!"  After breakfast he gathered up some tools and the wheelbarrow and dug that monkey out!  It's huge - probably 2.5 ft. - and it IS a glass mosaic monkey, but better than that, he's a cowboy - or rather, a sheriff!  his hands are broken off, as is the brim of his hat, but you can see there's a badge and a fancy beltbuckle, and at his hips, you can see perfect impressions in the concrete of where his 6-shooters were!  Billy hosed him off and propped him against a tree.  He's the most amazing thing ever.  Now the question is, what's the story on this guy?  who made him?  why did he end up dumped out back?  i can imagine that a monkey sheriff lawn ornament isn't for everyone.  i'm betting someone hated him and eventually said "get that thing out of here"!  We love him immensely and he's staying right up close where we can marvel at him!

in the ground!

ok, i know everybody's sick of seeing pictures of twigs and grass, so i'll only bore you once more with this!  We got 2 more trees in the mail today - a tulip tree and a red maple that I ordered from the Arbor Day folks - these were bigger - like 3-4 ft tall - so we could plant them out where they'll live.  Unlike the bucket of twigs that I showed last time.  Billy planted those in the ground, near the house so we could baby them.

As you can see, they're barely even visible!  He also got the pink flowering dogwood planted near the house where we think i'll have the partial shade it enjoys.  It's so hard to know before the trees get their leaves - but there are several big maples around and I think they'll give a little shade.

Then he trekked out into the back 40 to put out the others.  There are a lot of big trees around the edges, but we want to take away some of the open grass field in the middle.  Somehow he's gone his whole life without planting a tree, so this was exciting for him!

This is the weeping willow.  It's pretty hard to photograph such things at dusk.  that was probably a bad idea.  I just wanted to get pictures on day one so that in 5 years we can marvel at how different they look!  This one is actually pretty tall already - probably 6 feet or a little more.  and it's a fast grower.  Yes, i know about the invasive roots - it's very far from anything!  it's ok!

This is the sunset maple.

This tiny little dude is a red maple with a tomato cage around it so it doesn't get mowed over!

This other tiny dude is the tulip tree - also with a protective anti-mow-over device on it!

So that's 5 trees planted today - and the 10 saplings that may be actual tree-sized trees on our deathbed! haha!  Still, it's cool to have them in the ground!

Trees and stuff!

For my birthday we joined the Arbor Day foundation and got the 10 free autumn color tree package.  We knew they'd be tiny, but we wanted some trees.  They just came in the mail on Monday.   When 10 trees can fit in your mailbox, you know they're tiny!  they're soaking in a bucket until we figure out a temporary spot for them - you're supposed to put them in a location for a year or two to nurse them up to size before putting them out where they'll permanently go.

Because I had a coupon and a gift card, we went to Lowe's and got these three trees this afternoon - something in a more reasonable size, but still cheap!  There's a pink flowering dogwood, a weeping willow, and a red sunset maple!

I've noticed a bunch of forsythias blooming as I drive around - I always love when they're all yellow!  Then, as we were pulling in today, I said "Hey!  We have forsythias!" - three of them!  yay!!  i had no idea what they were when they were just bare twigs!  I kind of hate it when these are trimmed down so much - i'll let them go!

And I know - everyone's grass is greening up - but it's so pretty!  it was like overnight it went from brown to green!  so exciting!!

ok, i'm ready!

This morning I finished making my new little garden plot - it's only 6'x10'.  It took me forever though because i had to dig out all the grass and that's my least favorite thing to do!  I put some of the dirt/grass clods around the shed, and wheelbarrowed a bunch to the back of the property.  For such a little space, it was a long process!  I'm ready to put in some tomatoes now!  and i mean now!

Across the street I noticed a bunch of green popping up, and I'm almost positive it's going to be a bunch of day lilies!!  ugh, how pretty!  there's also a big patch of daffodils in the ditch as well -- who knows how those got there, but it's lovely!