Wow — you guys are all so very cool. Thank you SO much for all of your wonderful comments on my giveaway. I’ve had a great time reading every one of them — some of you are pretty darn funny too. Those of you who are regulars here know that I try pretty hard to answer all of my comments, but I always call a truce on giveaways. I’d like to figure out how to possibly visit all of the new-to-me blogs that have made such kind comments. Wish me luck! If you haven’t been here in a few days (or ever ;-) ), scroll down to the next post and enter my little giveaway if you’re interested.

In the meantime, after the mulch post, I had a few requests to show you what we could possibly be doing with all that mulch. And several of you suggested that all that mulch must be indicative of some sort of gorgeous garden.  Around here though, it’s more the case of lots of trees that block the sunlight that keeps the grass growing. If we had more sunlight, I’d hope to have a ton of flowers like so many of you do (Isabelle, Miss Jean, and Mrs. Staggs, just to name a few.  And MyDadLovesMeBestSister — you should seeee her garden this year!)  Anyway, we end up mulching to keep the weeds down. This first picture shows two of our larger beds. You can see the struggling grass around them. We’ll probably try to re-seed in the fall (we’ve found that re-seeded grass in the spring just dies in the summer heat.)

Here’s one of two beds by the front door.  There used to be a few more hostas and bleeding hearts in this bed, but some obnoxious friendly bunny has had his way with them.  Hopefully by the end of summer the impatiens will be big and pretty.

A very hard to decipher bed in the front yard.  The big unruly bushes are a variety of hydrangea  and towards the front is that wild grass stuff that sends up tassels — it will be almost as tall as me by the fall.

My favorite bed, with a sideview of the wild grass bed in the background.  This bed actually gets lots of sunlight during the day.  Coneflowers to the left and some lilies that will be pretty and pink in July on the right.  I’m hoping they’ll bloom this year — it’s hard to tell from this angle but my buddy the Ugly Tree has grown up over those lilies.  It’s almost like he’s protecting them.  I wish I had small children around — they’d love to make a little playhouse under the Ugly Tree.  (Btw, the last time I called it the Ugly Tree I had several comments saying it wasn’t ugly at all.  I think it’s a Weeping Norway Spruce and I think it’s a beautiful tree too, but TheManoftheHouse hates it and so we jokingly call it the Ugly Tree.  All his taste is in his mouth.)

There are borders along the house and hedges and other random trees that require lots of mulch.

Our hydrangea bed.  The mulch edging here is looking a little ragged — apparently we had a big downpour here today (which explains the leaves and crud all over the mulch under the trees) and that edge becomes a trough where the mulch attempts to float away.

This is about 1/3 of this bed.  I just finished planting the begonias tonight which will wrap up the spring planting this year (Yay! — except for a quick planting this weekend of some hollyhock seeds that Jody sent me last fall — I’m really excited to see if I can actually grow them!)  When we first moved here, this bed got some good sun but now it only gets about 2 hours each day.  The peonies on the left get almost no sun, yet they still manage to bloom (see the big pretty buds?)  The daisies have been blooming with very little sun too — we’ve been really lucky.

So, now you know where all that mulch went.  And we mustn’t forget Winnie and the herb bed.  They’re very happy tonight as we had some good rain today.

We’re escaping on Saturday to collect TheSecondChild and move him back home.  We’ve all missed him and we’ll be glad to have him back here for a little bit until he finds gainful employment.  Paulkitty is especially excited and has been keeping his bed warm — that mean ol’ EmptyNestChild won’t let Paul on our bed at night.  ;-(  I hope you all have a great weekend and we’ll see you back here on Monday with a giveaway winner!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh P.S.  I almost forgot to tell you I had one of those breath catching moments this morning just before I left for work.  I glanced out my back windows just as a beautiful small coyote trotted through the yard — in one side and out the other.  At first I thought he was a little fox but as he ran right by me I could see his mottled coat.  I think his  size and un-scraggly coat meant he was pretty young.  My first instinct was to grab my camera, but I realized that if I ran for it, I would miss him, so I just stood there and enjoyed the moment.  And I was happy the cats are indoor cats.  ;-)

Well, there’s just not much Thimble in Thimbleanna these days.  It’s so, so sad.  It’s always hard in the spring and fall anyway, because of the extra yard work.  Add a graduation, two kid moves this month, and the every-other-year mulching and it’s just hopeless.

The big truck rolled in this morning and dumped the mulch in the driveway.  See all that smoke?  That wasn’t dust — the mulch was steaming HOT.  (???  Did they cook it before they arrived?)  Mr. DumpTruckMan managed to dump some of the mulch right on top of a few of my coneflowers so I was scurrying to rescue them before they were fried.

Can you see the pretty green of the trees peeking into the picture?  After a cool, wet spring, our spring colors are brilliant and gorgeous this year.  Aren’t the green and chocolate brown pretty together?  I’d love a quilt or some socks out of those colors.  And throw in some robin’s egg blue — yum, yum!

Well, now you know how I’ll be spending my weekend.  I’m hoping we’ll be done by Sunday night so I can at least have a free (ha!) day on Monday before returning to work on Tuesday.  Wish us luck!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. Talking about those pretty chocolate and green colors reminded me that I forgot to show you the cool sock yarn that I picked up at Cami’s when we went to TheSecondChild’s graduation a few weeks ago. They are Lorna’s Laces custom colors. I vowed I’d stop buying Lorna’s Laces because of the problems I’ve had with pooling, but I couldn’t help myself with these pretty yarns (this picture doesn’t do them justice.)  When I left the store, Cami had lots more of this yarn and I’m sure she’d be happy to ship to you, so if you’re feeling the need for some pretty chocolate + pink or blue, ring her up!  (Hey, she’s not paying me to say this — I just don’t know where else you can get this yarn.  ;-)  )