Spring Scenes From Our Homestead

I thought I'd show you all the beginnings of spring in our neck of the woods.

These mini daffodils are unfortunately right where the new garden will go, so they will have to be moved.  Those are oriental lillies coming up behind them.

Our magnolia is getting ready to bloom!  Yeah!!

Buds are out on both hydrangeas.

New bud, old bloom.

My lamb's ears are sprouting up again.  These get huge in the summer, with purple flower spikes that the bees love.

Hyacinths are starting to bloom - these are interspersed with iris, and I can't WAIT until they bloom this year.  They are transplants from my mom's house, and it takes iris a year of being transplanted to re-bloom.

And since Colleen reminded me, my To Do list is getting two items crossed off!

This is the girls' little outdoor bench.  I sanded and stained it, then coated all the wrought iron with Rustoleum.  Ta-daa!!!

And here is my little lilac bush in its new location, where it gets much more sun.  I love lilacs ... I may get another one to put next to it (Shhh, don't tell Mister)

Everything I have read about transplanting lilacs says to never do it in the spring, wait until fall to avoid them getting dried out.  Well our yard is verrrrrry wet, so I moved it and went out a day later and it was happy as could be and covered in buds.  So there.

Speaking of my very wet yard,

This is what happens when a neighbor gets their yard professionally landscaped my jackasses who don't take into account that yards are sloped for a reason.  The landscaper built our neighbor's yard up about 3 inches above ours, so now our entire backyard floods.  (This is receded, believe it or not)  Our neighbor is very nice and had no idea this would happen, and told the Mister we are welcome to dig channels through her gardens to allow the water to drain.  We will do this - but I also have been reading up on creative ways to manage backyard flooding, and came across a site about rain gardens.  The concept is to dig basically a dry well, but leave a shallow bowl on top and plant native perennial plants around it.  So it acts as a natural holding tank for the water, and the plants break up the soil with their roots and allow the rain to be absorbed.  Isn't that awesome?!?  I've been wanting to build a pond in our backyard, but this is less maintenance and so much more practical.  We've been finding leopard frogs in our backyard for years now - now they'll have a little hangout!
And I'll leave you with this - I went for a run yesterday morning, and came back and sat on the floor to stretch.  Zac came over and sniffed me, then started whining and was practically laying on top of me and licking me.  Something about Mommy smelling sweaty did not seem right to him!  This sums up his feelings -