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Showing posts from May, 2016
You know you want to party.

There's a pipe in your monkey grass

Digging up the little area next to the driveway to plant monkey grass - Harris thought I was the only one in the world who called it Monkey Grass, not that it was the proper noun of the plant in the south. The lawn and garden guy at Lowes helped him reach acceptance.  Anyway, in digging that little trench, I found a buried pipe that runs from plant three back to before the missing gate in the front yard fence. But it is a good thing Harris is here. He had the foresight to ask 'does it run under the house' to my 'would you please just pry it up?' You see that middle grassy strip? One day it's going to be rock, or moss, or maybe grass because you know, there is three inches of rock under that grass. I'm going to have some fun with a hose.  And Little Pebble Creek, looking more complete but still not complete. I planted hosta on the left side. On the right side in the new bed I planted the little potted hydrangea that I have Harris for vale

Mother's day

For Mother's Day, Madeline and I went to tea at the Washington Duke Inn. Madeline had built it up so much in her head that I was worried it wouldn't live up to her expectation. We talked about what was different from her expectation - we sat at individual tables not everyone in the restaurant having tea together, etc.  We picked out outfits together and then Harris took a couple of snaps of us while Margot napped.  Yes, Madeline had cucumber sandwiches. And desserts.  Margot stayed home with Harris and worked on chores, Here she's 'sweeping' (No! Mine!) the front walk.

Lawn and Garden

The South Lawn (aka the other lot, aka our yard) suffered benign neglect for at least the past 10 years. The previous owners had a service that came twice a month to mow and tidy up,  but they were not doing anything else. Last year, we had a service for the same thing. This year is different. So far, we've created the rose garden. Here we have deeply scented roses from Lowes and a climbing Joseph's Coat from Witherspoon. A cedar shrub was growing out of this little strip of land. Every time we opened the gate we got a hand or face full of prickles. It was quite unpleasant.  Our best guess is that at some point there was sewage work done that required digging up a portion of the patio. There is a cleanout in the middle of this bed of rock. prior to the pretty rock it was rock covered over in dirt and brush and grass. I spent a lazy couple of hours with the hose washing the rock and removing the mud so that we could put in new rock and stop the growth there. We also ha