I.AM.SO.SORE...

Manual labor does not become me, really. It's been such a long winter and there hasn't been a lot of opportunities to go outside and do some good old fashioned yard work. Until today. It was a beautiful day and we (the husband, the boy, and I) totally took advantage of it!

We trimmed Potentilla bushes that had been broken off by the heavy snow.

We trimmed the four maple trees out front and three three maple trees out back. Only 75 more to go!

We took out the old pasture fence along the edge of the road we'd been threatening to remove for years. I told the husband that without that fence there, the barrow pit now feels more like a part of the yard and maybe, just maybe, it would deter those asparagus theifs from helping themselves. It's been a serious problem in the past... but that's just one of the disadvantages to having asparagus patches in my front yard!

We cleaned up sticks the messy willow trees dropped in the yard over the winter.

I raked weeds along the edge of the driveway... still have another 75 feet to do.

We argued with the cat for a good hour about getting her fat bum out from under the porch and back in the house where she belongs!

We finished cleaning out the flower beds and laid extra brick to use as a step along the back porch.

Then I told the husband that one of these days I was going to sneak over to my inlaws back yard when they weren't looking and trim their very messy and brambly plum trees along our driveway. Instead of waiting until they weren't looking, I got busy and gave them a haircut, until the husband took away my snippers, since he was tired of hauling off branches! Good thing, cuz my mother in law came out about then to see what we were doing and wasn't too happy to hear I was having a good time manicuring her yard.

(consider this your before shot)

Technically, it's grandma's yard, but grandma died eight years ago (she once had a trailer there, we moved it out when she died and turned the vacant spot into our badminton court), and since then, nobody has really taken an interest in tending to her yard beyond mowing the grass. Since I look at this brambly corner every time I drive out of the driveway, I figure I might as well stake claim to it. If I want to get rid of all those nasty plum trees with their mess of runners, then by darn, I'm going to do it.

I might just have to wait until she's at work to finish, though.