Gardening

The first time the Little Man and I visited the Honey here at his house, we came out back to throw a football around for a while. It was the first weekend in November, and the weather was gorgeous. I fell in love with this yard that day. Maybe it was the feeling of having a real family... the family I'd been wishing for for my son and myself for 8 years. Playing 'catch'... doesn't get any more simple than that, but it was such an amazing feeling, and one I hadn't been sure I'd ever find.

Anyways, fast forward almost a year and a half, the back yard is most definitely my favorite part of what is now our home. It is big enough to come out and play in, fenced - so I know it's safe for the boy-, gets great sun, but also has enough trees that you can find shade if you want it. Plus, there's this great little 'island' in the middle-ish where there are flowers growing. Better yet, about half of the flowers we already have are orange Daylilies. Those are my absolute favorite flowers. They're so bright and cheery and beautiful.

I decided a few weeks ago, the first time we had really beautiful Spring weather, that I wanted to do a little bit of yard work, and maybe take a stab at a garden. Raked up some of the leaves and tree branches that had fallen over the winter. I got all geared up for it, and then we had a cold snap... poured rain all day one day and then snowed on top of it overnight. Surprise that morning when school was delayed 2 hours because the roads were so bad! Anyways, ever since, I've been itching to get back outside and play around a bit. I got my chance yesterday. It was gorgeous out, so I grabbed the pup and went out. Did a bit more raking, and then spent about an hour pulling weeds. We have a section running along about half of the house in the back... it's maybe a foot and a half wide, and then it's separated from the rest of the yard by a wooden rail... I have to believe it was meant to be a planter of some sort, so I'm going to take a stab at it. The Honey says he's not sure if anything will grow there, and I don't know, either, but I'm excited to try. I'm not even sure what kind of soil is back there... half of it is covered in little pebbles, and the rest feels almost claylike, but we'll see if we can make something work, that little garden and I.

I've never attempted anything like this. I've always been an 'inside' kind of person. All the way back to when I was a kid... I was that little girl who stayed inside to read at recess at daycare. My mom likes to go outside and play around with weeds and take the loppers to an overgrown bush here and there. I never got the appeal. Give me a book and a couch, and I'm a happy camper. Something about this yard, though... I'm in love. So I'm going to try. I have a few potted flowers I've been given this year... didn't fare too well inside, but I'm hoping to revive them outside. We'll see where we go from there. I've heard that tomatoes are easy to grow. Maybe I'll try that... especially with there apparently being a shortage this year. Would be nice to have my own growing here. Not even sure if it's the right time of year to try... I've got some research to do :D

I'm not ready to sink any money into this... I'm sure it could get to be a pretty expensive hobby pretty quickly... especially since I don't know yet whether my thumbs are going to end up being green or black. But I'm going to start with some basic stuff, and I'm excited about it.