Garden Party!

The mister has been mighty busy in the backyard during these pretty days. This year will be our first year with a REAL garden. We've had a corner designated for tomatoes and a row of asparagus (which should be ready this year finally!) and strawberries but nothing that truly constitutes a garden. So the mister has cleared out the five million mini trees and rose bushes that had overgrown our yard and erected a small fence to note our garden space.

Side funny story: The day that the mister put the fence up, Pongo was patiently standing next to it (such as pictured below) and a bird landed in the middle of the garden area. Well Mr. Pongo jumped over the fence from a standstill, chased the bird to the corner, turned around and jumped right back over the fence! So much for keeping the beast out! Ever since then though, he has yet to try again and just stands on the outside of it looking over the edge. It's pretty cute.

Here's the mister during a rare break from digging up a huge stump. Behind him you can see our leaf compost pile, a wood pile and not pictured is our food compost pile.

To break up the ground thoroughly for the garden, we have borrowed a tiller from my parents. A tiller they purchased from TG&Y back before I was born! They had a guy at work get it in working order and here it is in all its glory! It's amazing how many childhood memories seeing that tiller has brought back!

I then took a stroll through the rest of the yard while the mister finished tilling. Below you'll see our future fire pit area. The mister buried all of those pavers himself and is slowly making a rock walkway through all areas of the yard. I liked the way the sun shone down on this pic :)

Heres the garden corner of the yard from the other corner of the yard. That stupid flag is the mister's pride and joy! We had an ongoing 'argument' when we moved in as to whether or not that was a flagpole or a tetherball pole. I still side with the tetherball pole since I want one :)

Oh, something else to note at this point. So our beloved neighbor Hap is now gone and was the mister's bff in the backyard. Almost to the day of losing Hap, another elderly neighbor caddy-corner to us has now befriended the mister. He's in his late 80's and lost his wife last month. The mister finds it funny that his best elderly neighborfriend passes away and BOOM! all of the sudden he's got a new one! I told him it's only fitting seeing that he married a 'grandma', as many of my friends call me due to my old lady tendencies.

Our 'new' fence which is actually about a year old. We spent wedding money on this and it has made such a difference! Pongo can't escape anymore and the meter man can get in to do his job! Also a little more of the pavers the mister layed. And our trash.

An artsy pic I took. Actually kind of a cool story about that spring. I basically lived with my childhood BFF at her house and her at mine. Well, they had this old couch that her mom finally decided had reached the end of its life and let us tear it up! Mind you we were maybe in our early teens? I totally still have two springs from that couch and this is one of them! They've since been used as candle holders, decoration and jewelry tool holders!

And finally, a funny one to end this blog. This would be Pongo staring out of his hole on the deck he created when we first got him. We were SO mad at him when he did this BUT are glad that he actually uses it ;)
I hope your backyards are exciting to you as ours is!