This weekend was wildly productive. Kevin and I did one of my favorite things - yard work. While that sounds sarcastic, and while sarcasm is usually a good assumption when listening to me - it's not. I do love to work out in the yard. I don't love mosquitoes though, and that makes working in the yard a little tricky here.
But this weekend? Was gorgeous. Not humid. Not hot. Sunny and beautiful.
Our backyard is a blessing and a curse. When Kevin bought the house, it was a waste land of decrepit trees, dirt, weeds, and a scary tree house that had to come down. Slowly, we've removed the trees that were dying and dropping limbs dangerously close to the house. We planted grass. We built a playset.
Over the past year, a lot of the mulch has washed away and Aja the English Setter has decided she's part pig and enjoys nothing more than laying in the mud. She dug holes all along the edge of the house, and Colin helped her out by finding it great fun to turn on the faucet randomly and creating mud pits for her to enjoy.
The first order of business was to clean that up. Of course, we didn't take before pictures.
Aside from the Setter trying to dig to China, we just needed some pretty. A crepe myrtle, some gardenias, and some random purple type plants helped this area tremendously. We are also hoping that Macy Moo will walk further than 10 inches off the deck to pee from now on because holy stank, that was disgusting to weed out and dig up.
Yesterday morning, we let Kevin and Mallory sleep in while I introduced the boys to the flea market at the state fair grounds. They each got a 50 cent car, and I got a metal dragonfly. I was hoping for a metal sculpture for the corner of the dog toilet flower bed, just to fill it up and discourage the pee party there, but all I got was this dragonfly. He's cliche, but cute.
Ignore those random bags of extra mulch. Digging deterrents for right now.
Finally, we got around to doing the project that I've been most excited about since June.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a coop. A chicken coop, to be exact. I'm so excited I could hardly go to sleep last night. Mallory and I have already named the chickens, but I'll wait to introduce them as they come home and I can get pictures.
For now though, here is the chicken estate. Right next to the fig tree, which I'm sure I'll decide was a terrible plan when I never have figs to eat. Of course, Gibson the Labrador has been eating the leaves and flowers off of it, so it's not like I have figs now. I have hopes and dreams of figs, but that's about it.
Casa de la Chickens:
Don't you want to just move right in? It seems that Colin did.
We are looking forward to getting a couple of hens soon, and then maybe some chicks in late September. And by "we" I mean "me" because everybody else in my family is just tolerating my desire for chickens. They'll come around though, I have full faith.
