With the arrival of some incredible weather, we dedicated serious time this weekend to improvement of the Mars environment.
Adrienne cut back the jungle of the back yard on Friday, filling about 90% of a 32 gallon compost/yard waste bin with various sorts of trimmings & invasive, out of control plants.
Zoey helped with the mowing of the grass.
Chomp chomp chomp...yum!
Sunday, we went out to the backyard to sit in the sunshine & enjoy the space her hard work created.
Here is Zoey enjoying the shade a blanket tent provides:
Do you have something I can eat?
Her lip gets stuck on her teeth sometimes. That's the underbite. It's either that, or her cheeks are stuffed with kibble, chipmunk style.
I took advantage of the time to transplant the brussels sprouts & collard sprouts to the back.
Brussels. Mmm.
Collards. Mmm.
The grass & ivy & other assorted vegetation I pulled out while preparing the beds filled the compost bin another 5%.
For the past couple weeks, I've been mulling over the fact that Mars' "curb appeal," as they say, is basically zero, what with the 20 year old vinyl siding, the old-fashioned-looking security gate, the peeling & sagging (& in places rotting) picket fence, and a sidewalk & driveway growing all kinds of weeds in the cracks. Not quite the neighborhood haunted house, but yeah, not so hot.
We're a ways off from any major projects, like removing the siding, but I did two things this weekend in hopes of sprucing the place up a bit: I gave the fence a fresh coat of paint, & I took care of the weeds. We put a couple potted plants on the porch recently, too, to add to the effect that people actually live here. The changes are probably unnoticeable to passersby, but I'm hoping that it'll at least be one of those things where you notice something is different & it looks better, although you can't quite put your finger on what changed.
Where did this handsome house come from?
That fence is so bright I gotta wear shades!
Why, I've never seen a sidewalk or driveway so clean!
The weeds & leaves & dirt from the sidewalk/driveway project filled the rest of the compost bin.
I also met some nice neighbors in the process of doing all this. One guy from up the hill mentioned that he can see our yard from his back porch -- he said he thought it looked terrific, as did the fence, & he thanked us for our hard work. And he said it in a genuine way, not a passively snide California way.
(Yes, that was a passively snide dig at Californians.)
And lastly, for the fans of the Mars roses, the yellow bush is blooming again:
This is about six inches across.
The Monster Rose Bush in the center of the yard is covered in buds, as well. It will be a riot of roses back there in just a couple weeks.
