Apologies for being absent the past few weeks – we’ve had a lot going on, seems like… Wifey’s illnesses are still illin’ her, we’re still hoping for some good news from her insurance company, some friends of ours held a benefit for us last weekend, and I’ve been busy with general springtime madness.

I’ve been trying to clear out some of the deadwood in our grove, get some grass seed planted in a few problem areas (mostly trying to clear up some gunky corners where I can’t mow and get a handful of grass seed to “take” to keep the weeds down a bit), planting some cuttings I took earlier of our little willow tree and some austrees (we desperately need a windbreak/privacy/keep-the-road-dust-down to the south and east, and most of our grove is mature trees that look like they’re on their way out – or ash trees that will be susceptible to the Emerald Ash Borer infestation that’s headed our way in a few years). I’m trying to do as much as I can with what we have on hand…

Every year since we moved here I’ve had to take the truck to town to buy more bark mulch for the raised flower beds we have around our house. The wind in the spring is so bad it would blow about 70% of the bark away every year. It’d cost about fifty bucks or so. Last year a friend sold us some pavers for cheap so I put in a new little garden on the windy side of the house and opted to put rock in instead of bark mulch. It looked great and lasted through a whole season without any maintenance at all. This year I wanted to update the little wildflower garden we have that’s been hiding our septic tank manhole covers and make it a little more formal and tidy as we have about an acre of new wildflowers in the pasture now. But buying rock at $3.50 a bag… I estimated it’d take about $75 to $100 to do. Icky poo. I was a little surprised when I found out that the same rocks were $15 a TON at the local aggregate dealer. One truck load of rocks later and viola! Next year I’ll replace more of the bark with another load of rocks.

A couple flower beds waiting for flowers

Hooked up the battery, an oil change, some grease, and the mower actually started yesterday. Huzzah!