Ahhhhhhh, Spring! (Part 1)

Before we could go have fun on our Spring break, we had to take care of some very important business.

Landscaping.

Oy, was that a job!

Jeff and Jericho had been working for a while in the afternoons to rid our property of some overgrown bushes and a couple of small trees that were threatening to invade the septic.

Jericho worked at chopping down the spindly massive tree in the yard, while Jeff cut back and then wrestled the Oleanders out of the earth.

And they hung on, let me tell you, clinging for all they were worth.

But, by the sweat of his brow, Jeff won.



Jericho, too. See that long stick trunk there behind the root balls? That's his tree.

This flurry of activity began to prepare the ground for a rose hedge, and to take back the lawn.

Here are some blooms from a couple of the young rosebushes which we bought to add to our collection.







Oh, the lovely fragrances of Spring!

And you simply can't go to nursery after nursery without being tempted by all the fruit and nut trees you see there, especially when they're blooming.

Naturally, we came home with a few of those as well, which will soon be added to our little orchard out back.

This is one of the two dwarf Empress peach trees.



Here is a gorgeous Red Baron peach tree. The flowers are the most incredible color (the photos don't do the actual color justice)...imagine a hot pink mixed with salmon and a bit of red. Beautiful.



While I have vague recollections of picking hazelnuts as a child in Western Washington, I don't ever recall seeing an almond tree up close.

Here are what baby almonds look like.



Aren't they cute?

They look kind of like fat little mice trying to climb down into the blossoms though, don't they, lol?

Our beloved Raisin enjoyed spending time with us in the yard.



Here she picks her way across the freshly tilled soil to get her ears scratched by me.

I know this because nearly every time she sees me, she does this...comes up to her 'mama' snuffling and doing this "Shrek" thing with her ears and acting all affectionate, all while doing her best to look adorable so that I'll scratch her ears and rub her jowly, wrinkly face and croon to her like I did when she was a puppy and she imprinted on me. (Don't let scientists try and tell you that only feathered fowl do such things...Raisin did this, too. She knows who her mama is.)

Why is it that even the dog comes to me for such things? My boys are just as bad...crawling into my lap all affectionately just to ask, "Mama, weow you squatch my back?" or coming in the room to say, "Hey, mom...could you get that itchy spot right between my chicken wings?" and turn around all expectantly.

Ahem. Anyway, getting back to my story...as far as the boys were concerned, the best part about all this yard work were the large holes which remained where trees and bushes had been.

Jericho and Judah made good use of these foxholes while Dad finished tilling the soil.











Yes, it was quite a productive couple of days.



Judah fancied himself quite the farmer after all that hard work 'helping' daddy work the land, and went and dug out his cowboy hat and spent the evening riding his horse around the farm yard.

They were having so much fun, they gave no thought to the fact that we'd mentioned a special surprise for them the following day...