73° & fabulous

Finally, springtime temperatures have graced my neck of the woods. It's in the low 7o's here today and lucky me, it's my day off. I just spent the last 3 hours out in the yard doing cleanups and maintainance. The house had been empty since July and we bought it in December, so our efforts this season have been something of a force. We've taken numerous loads of debris/branches out to Josh's work to be chipped & have accumulated a huge leaf pile that will go in our compost bin—once we build it.

In our backyard we have an "L" shaped row of arborvitaes that act as a natural privacy fence to our neighbors (both behind us and to our left). I discovered relatively early this season a climbing rose bush behind the arborvitaes. Today, I tackled it. What.a.bitch. It was really unruly and apparantly had grown over into the neighbor's yard year-after-year—as evidenced by the massive amounts of thorny dead branches on the ground. Which sucked to try to rake out from under the trees without getting all tangled up, or worse, stabbed by the offending thorns. But in the end, I was the one who triumphed. I got that baby out of there, cut the dead branch out of the fence and picked up all the branches that were behind the trees. I cut it way back and stuck it in a pot to see if it will grow. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Much to my surprise and pleasure I found a bunch of bulbs growing under the arborvitaes as well. I dug them up and planted them on the side of the house near our breezeway entrance. I think they're daffodils, which I'm guessing by the foliage structure, but I won't be sure until they flower and bloom. The bulbs look really healthy so I'm hoping for the best. I also discovered some bulbs growing further up the side of the house. Again, it's too early to tell exactly what they are, but my guess on this one is grape hyacinths.

A couple of weeks ago I cut a branch off a bush of ours—which we believed to be (and were correct) an ornamental plum—and brought it inside to force. By creating "spring-like" temps you can get the cutting to bloom earlier indoors than the ones outside. The leaves came out within a week and are a really nice dark burgandy. A couple of days ago it started to flower. They are these little tiny pink & white flowers and are really pretty. We have four of those bushes all in a row and they will be fantastic when they're in full bloom.

It's supposed to be relatively nice all week here—with a bit of rain here and there—and tomorrow is the only day I have to work. Albeit a 13 hour day. I've still got Thursday through Sunday to enjoy.