A Bunch Of Yard Pics

Did you know that when we moved in the yard was a windblown dustbowl, fit only for wandering scorpions and the occasional very cabin-fevered child?

Well it was.

I didn't take any Truly Before pictures, because even though Grammy reminded me I'm just that lazy.  But this is a Sort of Before picture.  Imagine in without the shrubs in the flour bed or the pine trees to the left.  (The other trees are in the distance, in the neighbor's yard.)

Another Sort of Before.  Imagine it without the concrete strip and the trees and bushes.

A Sort of Before of the back yard.  I really like my trees, though.  And the bushes are currants, so that means next year I can make some more currant cordial like I did two years ago, which was popular and guzzled.  The peach cordial that I tried the year after that?  Not so much.

I mean you can see what I mean  by dust bowl.

All of the work was extremely fascinating.  (The boys do not do pants on warm days when we stay home.

It's just... easier.)

Today a giant semi truck with sod rolled up the street in front of our yard, where what Buddy calls "the diggermans" had been waiting, leaning on their shovels and sitting inside upturned wheelbarrows (really), for half an hour.

They busily got to work.  After a bit.

It was fascinating.

Fascinating, I tell you!  Like a dirt and grass quilt!

Even the Littlest Sasquatch had to get in on the fun.  He was very vocal about being included, and kept yelling "I SEEEEEEEEE!" at the window.

After!

Well, okay, it's Sort of After.  Because, as we've come to expect from them, the Diggermans miscalculated and did not order *quite* enough turf.  You see the spot back there by the Husband.  You'll also notice the huge honking gap in the fence, which the Diggermans still have to fix.  Will we pay the Diggermans until this is finished?  We will not.

But I mean, look at the trees!  Aren't they pretty?  The tall ones are ash trees, the ones in the back are lilacs, and the ones you can't see because they're tiny are cranberry cotoneasters.  (Unrelated to actual cranberries.)

The sod is in extra-large pieces so as to allow people and dogs to walk gently on it without fear of crushing its tiny life-force into the muck.

A real yard!  Makes me feel less like a Joad!

Aaaand the front, which we can say is a real After, because they finished all of it.

Much better, huh?

I think so, anyway.

Well, okay, maybe it's only a Sort of After.  I need to ask the head Diggerman about this plant, which is supposed to be guaranteed for a year, and which looks a little peaked to me.  Does it look peaked to you?  I mean, maybe dogwoods always get this way after transplant, but I doubt it.

In other news, Buddy has mastered reading "ME" and "MA", The Littlest Sasquatch's favorite word is still "BALL" (a close second is "MAP"), and Miss Boo is now reading everything that I don't want her to.

Cheers,

Breanna