It's Spring! Almost Summer!

Spring is here in Cache Valley! The trees are blooming, the bees are buzzing, and the grass needs mowing! I love springtime! I love the smells of fresh cut grass, flowers blooming...I love the sounds of the mowers going and kids laughing as they play outside. I love that we are in a house that we can do yard work in. I wish it was ours, but honestly, I am just glad to be in a house and not have to worry about when things go broken. I just wish we could have a kitty. Or a dog. But the landlord says NO! That's one downside of renting....but oh well. We have been doing yard work every weekend trying to get the yard in decent shape. The last people that lived here DID NOT take care of it at all. It looked terrible when we moved in. Granted, we moved in in December...what yard looks good in the middle of winter...but it still looked bad when it started to warm up and get green. We still have a lot to do, but we have done a lot also. We've cleaned out the flower beds (one more to go), pruned four trees (they needed it bad, but unfortunately we had to take some of the house shade...but now the trees will be healthy haha!). We've cleaned up alot of the leaves (still have a lot to go) and cleaned out the entire side of the garage that was full of dead tree branches, leaves, and garbage. I am amazed at how much of a difference just doing that made to that area. It looks so much better now than it did. There were a bunch of random flowers in the middle of the yard too...tulips, snowdrops...other annuals....I tried to transplant some of them but I don't think it worked. Oh well. There is also another spot that I want to put a small bush in, and maybe plant a tree in the front yard. This house has no air conditioning (it was built in 1928!) so the only coolness we get is from shade trees. So, I would like to plant one in the front yard to see if that helps with shade. I want something that is fast growing, but won't have a huge root system because I don't want it to end up breaking through the foundation. Luckily we have been given the go ahead to pretty much do what we want to the house, at least cosmetically. We can do whatever we want outside, if we want to paint inside we can. The owner tends to put the house up for sale every couple years, so I don't want to do a lot of work to it and then have to move. If it was ours it would be different, but it's not. At least not yet...maybe someday!