Spring Break

Howdy! I don't have any crafts to post this week as I am in the middle of a couple of projects. So I will be taking a (spring) break from craft sharing to show you some of the blooming things in our yard.


We planted some forsythia bushes last year on the side of our garage. They didn't grow very much over the past year, but we got a variety that's not supposed to grow super fast. Here they are sporting their lovely yellow blooms:

We also planted six green-flowered Hellebores. I love green flowers...they're my favorite :) One of them has kicked the bucket, but we were able to return it to Lowe's and get our money back. Yes, it was only one day before the 1 year warranty was up, but that was because we kept putting off digging it up. Here is a pic of some flowers on one of the 5 remaining plants:

I planted some bulbs in a couple places in our yard last October. Let's see...there were daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, crocus, and grape hyacinths. Here's what the bed looked like a week ago:

Not a whole lot going on, but there's some green poking through the mulch. Here's what the bed looks like today:

Last year, a groundhog decided to take up residence under our cement front steps. He (or she) prepared a tunnel with a hole on each side of the steps. Several people recommended we just shoot the digger, but living adjacent to an elementary school really doesn't make that an acceptable practice. Plus, I wouldn't really be comfortable doing that anyway even though I really don't like Mr. (or Miss) Groundhog at this point. I called a wildlife removal service, and they wanted lots of money and would exterminate him/her after trapping. The Gnome called a couple of wildlife agencies and found out that we could treat the area with fox urine (which is bottled for some application in hunting) to scare him/her off. We obtained said fox urine, sprayed a couple of treatments, and filled in the holes about 24 hours after so the bugger had time to vacate. Then, we rejoiced when there was no more evidence of digging, in or out. After we came home from dinner yesterday, we saw this next to our steps:

The groundhog has returned and has both holes all nice and dug out. Curses. This had to have just happened yesterday because I've been checking out the area every day to look at the pretty flowers. So I'm off to buy more fox urine (and some sort of wire to keep this from happening yet again). Wish me luck.


Leaf out.


P.S. Next week, I think I'll finally post pics from my parents' 45th anniversary from last July. Yes, it's almost July again.