Yay Yardwork!

Over the weekend Nick and I had a great time working in the yard. I thought I'd share some pictures of our accomplishments.



First, we have a couple pictures of our new rain barrels that Nick installed on Saturday. These barrels will catch about half of the rain water that comes off our roof and store it so we can use it for watering plants later. The first barrel is connected to a diverter in the gutter. When the first barrel fills up, the second will fill. When the second one is full too, the diverter will switch and water will then go down the gutter into the drain. In case you 'd like to purchase your own rain barrel(s), we got ours at composters.com (where we also got our compost bin). YAY! (I think that Nick took these pictures around dusk, which is why the house looks so dingy orange/brown).




This is the "leaf turd" that Nick pulled out of the gutter during the process of connecting the rain barrels. To give you a sense of scale, this thing was about three feet long. We put it into the compost bin.




While Nick was busy installing the rain barrels, I was busy making executive decisions about the yard (hehe). We've been planning to redo our yard ever since we moved in. We've spent months talking and thinking, reading books and seeking the advice of friends in the know. I think I had a bit of a freak out this weekend; I felt overwhelmed by the never ending amount of different ideas we came up with, all of which I liked. Should we put the garden over here or over there? Should the pond be a geometric shape or should it be more natural? Should the path curve to the left or to the right, or should it be straight? I decided to just make a decision, put things where I wanted them, and see what I thought.

So, this is what I ended up with. We had bought several pannels of black medal fencing on sale at Menards. I decided that an arbor would make a nice entrance for the garden area. We were happy to find that the arbor that we had seen several times at Menards was still there, and was even cheaper than before (like $70 bucks). So, here it is folks, the begining of what will be my veggie garden area next year. I'm going to get several more of the square raised beds that you see in the picture. I'm going to also have to move several of the plants once they go dormant. And, of course the dirt pile will be used to fill the raised beds.... oh yeah and the chair is completely random; I dunno why its there. lol! Oh yeah, and we're also going to tear up the existing path and build a new one. hehe!



And finally... just because I find it difficult these days to post pictures to my blog without a picture of kitties... here y'a go. Kitties asleep on the sun porch.