My Backyard

Yesterday after sleeping a bit from working all Saturday night, I got up and around outside. I already bought my begonias and spike on Friday, so all I had to do was plant it! Our backyard is very prettily landscaped--unfortunately it also requires a lot of upkeep...which we are bad about. So slowly bit by bit I have gotten back there and trimmed ivy and bushes and weeded. I am making a bit of a dent I think. I keep the flowers pretty simple and stick with what I do good with--begonias! A couple of years ago, I planted a few different things to see how they did. Some were annuals, some were perennials. I don't like having to buy new flowers every year, but none of my "perennials" came back except for....

....my dianthus! They have come back every year whether I water them or not, and seem to be very hardy (and pretty) little flowers. Begonias are also a flower that I can't seem to kill, so I plant bunches and bunches of them. This year I got white, pink, and red and put them in several pots in the backyard, and two in the front on the porch.

I added some spike in the middle of this one because my mom does that, and it always grows so beautifully with the begonias. I know they all look pitiful now (don't judge me!) but they bush out nicely so I'll take pics later on in the summer when they look better! This big pot ^ is by the pool and gets a lot of sun.

While I was planting flowers and Brad was eating grass, Nick was wrestling with the pool cover. This is usually a two-person job, but he likes to be stubborn and do it himself. Keep in mind we didn't open our pool last year because we had a newborn to keep us busy and because we didn't live here for a few months. So this is what was underneath to greet us....

Can you see swamp thing peering up from the side? After some investigation, we were happy to find that there really isn't much debris on the bottom to scoop up--it is mostly just algae. That means we can just shock the crap out of it and put algaecide in and {in theory} it should be clear within a week. That was my task today--go to the store and buy our chemicals to begin the purification process. We don't do all the fancy test strips and pH this and that--we just do the simple stuff until it's clear and we have never had issues doing it that way. So poo on the fancy pool stores! Nick put a bag of shock in today and turned on the pump. We are going to leave it going for a couple days and put some algaecide in tomorrow and see what that does.

We went over to the skimmer on the side of the pool and wondered what would be waiting to greet us underneath. We have found frogs, bugs, and all kinds of creepy crawlers under there before, but this one is by the far the most deadly we have found!

I'll give you 3 guesses what that is, and the first 2 don't count! UGH. I squealed and ran away like a girl when I saw that. There was also a wolf spider hanging out on the side. These bugs have NO purpose to me. Nick did away with them....

After that small problem was taken care of and Nick went inside with the boy, I stayed outside and practically destroyed an ecosystem with all of the bushes, small trees, and ivy I cut back in my flowerbeds and around the pool. I still have tons to do of course, but we only have 2 yard trash cans which are emptied every Tuesday. So after tomorrow, I can fill them up again! Yay.

While I was in the back, I noticed our wild strawberries are blooming! Don't they look yummy??

That's about it for the backyard stories. I think after Nick trims the bushes and stuff up we will have a cookout on our new grill before it gets too hot. We really didn't do much last year since I was so discombobbled with Bradley and all. But I've got my act together this summer and we will make up for it!

On a side note, my friend Sara and I started the low carb diet last Tuesday (which is how my mom lost 150lbs last year). She is getting healthy to try and conceive, and I am getting my last few muffin-top pounds off to look good for this summer!! I weighed yesterday and the scale had NOT moved...I was getting a bit discouraged because Sara had already lost 7lbs. Well today I weighed and guess what?? I lost 6lbs!!! Yay me.