Hail Storm Clean-Up

After getting hammered yesterday evening in the hailstorm that ripped across the area, I find myself this evening cleaning up the yard. Unfortunately many of my flowers that were all beautiful in bloom took quite a beating and the pond is "dirty" again. We are thankful for all the rain, however.

Front Flowerbed - Part 1

We finally planted the front flower bed. The first year was just some pots sitting around in the area as we'd just dug out the overgrown shrubs and cleared the weeds and had no idea what we wanted to do. We later revamped the space by covering the area with pea gravel and again did potted plants. Dogs and kids proved the pea gravel idea to be a faulty one. A couple other iterations and finally we just planted the thing.

...and not like I normally plant stuff. There were no propagated babies or split plants in this bed. My DH took me to the garden center and we got already growing well plants. It was a whole new experience for me. LOL... New beds include Nandina, Geranium, Gerbera Daisy, Lobelia, and Impatiens.



(Photos were taken w/phone camera right after planting.)

To keep the dogs and kids out of the planted beds, we did go ahead and surround the beds with some fencing. I'm hoping that, someday, this will be able to come down without causing the death of the plants in the flowerbed and thereby, the death of the dogs.

To reduce mud playing and messes around the water, DH set down some bricks which have already proved to have been a wonderful idea!

The garden is growing and I'm very excited. Now I just have to get the bed space on the other side of the front door completed so we can get it planted as well.

Very Madder

You KNOW our son isn't liking what he's being told to do when he slaps his knee and says, "You are making me very madder!" Oh, the frustration of a three-year-old. Just one of the little things that often times cracks us up around here.

Rain!!

Finally we are getting some much needed rain. It began last night and is still going. Not a huge fan of how much the temp dropped (was about 87 degrees yesterday and is only about 46 today) but am loving the moisture!

It was a Massacre

So we finally got the pond cleaned out and new water added. Followed the directions, to the letter, for the declorinator/stress coat stuff. While we know now that we should have left the fish in the tub for a few days longer, we went ahead and put them back into the pond. THAT was a VERY BAD thing. Killed everything. It was a massacre and I caused it. I'm very sad that I killed all our fish. Those things had survived the nastiest of conditions only to have me kill them.

It is a sad day around here. Well, I'M sad. DH is of the mind, "Well, we learned from THAT mistake. We'll know better next time. No worries. We'll get some more." The kiddos just keep reminding me, "Mom, all your fish are dead." Yeah, thanks for that. I didn't know. Urg.