Weekend in Review: Wheels and Whine

It has been quite awhile since I have done a weekend in review post, so I thought I would do one since I am, you know, posting every day this month! :)

Oh my goodness! Spring is simply stunning this year, and today Ornery and I spent a whole day playing outside in the back yard.  HE would say we were working, but honestly, when a day is as beautiful as this one was, I am pretty sure it was a pleasure to be outside, no matter what we were doing.  And what were we doing?

I am so glad you asked!  We were getting our backyard ready for the summer.  We turned the soil in the two raised vegetable beds, transplanted four mature nandina bushes to a spot outside my studio window, moved around some pots and transplanted a few perennials that had managed to winter over in pots.

Ornery unclogged his staple gun (a procedure that took so long I thought he had gotten lost or something) and used it around four raised beds to get the landscape fabric up off the ground. The highlight of his day was using his cordless drill to hang the rain gauge on the fence.  I swept, raked, hoed, shoveled, bent over and over and over... and boy am I feeling a winter of inactivity!  Anyway, we got about 75% of the work out there finished, and even planted some little seedlings courtesy of my sweet daughter who has been ever so faithfully watering them every day since Valentine's Day.  I planted six tomatoes and two zucchini squash plants. :) I also transplanted three herbs that had over-wintered.  I am using one 4X8' bed for vegetables and the other one for herbs. Next weekend we will finish all the planting, and hopefully get some fresh mulch down on the bed we removed the nandinas from.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and worked a little bit in the front yard--I planted a few new perennial flowers I picked up at Whole Foods--and Ornery mowed. He had just finished with the mower and was getting the weed eater out when the skies opened up. It was great sleeping weather, so we had a nap, which kept us awake much later into the night than we are used to, so we ended up sleeping in this morning.

The other news is that I am now in possession of my old van again.  Ornery is not thrilled because it is pretty much a heap of junk, but it is wheels and it does run, so I now have a bit of freedom to come and go while he is at work.  It has been almost four years (?) since I have driven, and I can't say I had missed it at all until Ornery was gone for a whole week and I couldn't get my mail! :(  Very sad.   Anyway, Elizabeth and Michael brought it over Saturday so now I can't use the excuse of "I don't have a car" anymore. Not that I ever offer excuses... :)

Rain is in the forecast for the next five days. Thursday we have an appointment with the county tax assessor's office to contest their property valuation on our rental property. Boy, I sure hope they lower the taxes on it!
And that's been our weekend.  It was nice!