Weekend Project

We found out, quite by accident, that Easter is a great day to shop at Lowe's. I feel a little guilty about that, but our schedules have been busy and if we hoped to get this project done, and buy the supplies for the other ones we have planned, this was the available weekend. Last weekend Shannon, Jenna and Allyson visited us and that was when we colored eggs and baked cookies.

It began like this. After a couple different attempts a growing anything beside snails along the back of the house it has been bare dirt for coming up on two years.

We like to sit out on the patio in the early evening, around sunset. Since the back of our house faces south, we generally need to sit facing east, with the sun at our backs. As a result, this is part of our backyard view. Not especially relaxing.
And because we had decided on a not low maintenance, but "no" maintenance area, out came the weed matting and the bark.
There does need to be some sort of ornamentation and we opted for solar lights and a bird bath outside the window. We decided even we were up for turning on the nearby hose and putting some water in the thing. Although since Zoey has an automatic filling water dish, even this could be optimistic. If the birds find it we'll do our best to keep it filled for them.

The roses are doing well and ready to bloom like crazy. Didn't get the food to them like I planned, but its still early.

Not to give the impression that our Easter was totally without festivities, here are the remnants of the baskets that the Easter Bunny was kind enough to leave.
We woke up this morning to the rain that missed us over the weekend. This is how we know it's spring in Southern California. It could rain. Winter, good possibility of way too much rain all at one time, Spring too. Summer, rarely, Fall, not much.