My Backyard Surprise

I really need to blog more. I have a lot of things to blog about. I have pictures to blog. Today's topic is my backyard.

Before my spring break vacation (Valerie's spring break, that is -- we went to Virginia and stayed in a yurt), Jared and I talked about making April our "Food and Outside month". We want to start a garden this year and don't have our beds made yet. We (J + S) didn't even have the space cleared where we (S) wanted the beds to go. Our cherry tree needed love. And we had a section of dirt, rocks, leaves, and sticks from the sewer issue last year. On the food side of April, we wanted to focus on our diet. More balance and just more focus in general. We were kinda slacking on meal planning and such. I also have a goal to keep trimming our grocery budget down but increasing our food storage from like one week to three months.

So we were going to start when I got back. Little did I know what Jared was planning. Let's look at what the backyard looked like a few months ago. Well, longer than a few months ago.

Let's take a tour of what the backyard looks like after fall and winter happened. And hard work from Jared and some help from Reed.

Sewer junk. It used to be a mound of dirt and rocks. Now the dirt has settled and there are rocks, sticks, and leaves. I don't know what we'll do with the rocks but it seems like perhaps I can use it somewhere. Ideas anyone?

CLEAR asphalt!!! This thing is big, people. And over half of it was piled with wood that Jared got rid of.

Some lovely fence line. It's bent and rusted and over grown.

The pole there is the power line thing.

The tree stump (thank you, Reed!).

Lovely cement blocks.

This used to be a climbing rose that was entwined with the tree and power line. :( I'm sad to lose it. But I already plan to remove some fugly bushes from the front yard and plant roses in their stead. I've missed roses ever since my family moved when I was 16.

The cherry tree got some love with some dead limb removal (thanks again, Reed!).

And this is what it looks like today. What you can't see so well is that the internet cord was cut when the tree in the corner got cut so it is now running along the backyard waiting for them to come back and bury the cable. He also got rid of all the cardboard in our garage.

What an awesome surprise! Jared, you're the best! I love you!