Sunburns and Backaches REALLY Worth It?

I smell like ammonia once again from working out in the area I showed you on a previous post.  And I REALLY need a shower at the moment.  But I'm too excited.  So I'll tolerate my stench to brag to the Internet world.

Because apparently I need that kind of validation.

Or is it that I just have a big head?

Who knows.  Oprah says it's that all people, in their core, just want to be seen and know their words matter to others.

Of course, I love Oprah and I made the mistake of watching her three final episodes back-to-back just to torture myself and cry for three hours straight.

*clearly a sign of my ignorance*

Apparently I suffer from tangent-itis.  I apologize.

Or not.

You can deal.

*insert laughter*

SO, I smell like ammonia and I need to purchase a zillion gallons of vinegar, but in the meantime, I'll show you what I have been up to.  I started with this:

A big hole surrounded by boulders.  I needed quite a bit of dirt to fill this area.  Super-smart-super-mom decides to use this:

...and walk all the way back there...

...well, back HERE...

...to get dirt out of that sandy spot in the middle there.  Fill that bucket, walk all the way back, fill the boulder-hole-thing and repeat as necessary.  No big deal right?

After more than a dozen trips back and forth after discovering my upper body strength was not going to allow more than half the five gallon bucket to be full while carrying this great distance, I ended up with this:

*grimace*

*huff and puff*

*collapse from heat stroke*

Because, you know, I was BRILLIANT!  I started this job at noon.  In the desert of New Mexico.  It took more than half an hour to get it full that much!

And typical of my life, I had to kick out the prior resident before I could even begin.

I kept on truckin'.

And trucked some more.

And trucked on some more until I felt like I was going to die for an hour.  I was finally able to mix in some garden soil so my plants would have more to feed on than sand, clay and rock.

Then I sprinkled in some plant food, threw in some rocks, watered it down and let this sit overnight.

I let this sit overnight because I didn't want to do anymore.

This is as much of the hole as I filled up.  It's still a hole in the backyard.  Bad Boy has been ordered to fill it.  I filled up half of it.  AND did the flowerbed with my own two hands (and back, and legs, and shoulders, and arms).

I am officially a wet noodle.

A sunburned, wet noodle.

Trust me.  I'm smokin' hot right now!

This morning, before the sun was bearing down on my little flowerbed and the temperatures soared to 5,672 degrees by ten in the morning, I went out and took these plants:

...and planted them!

These were given to me for Mother's Day by The Literary Musician's grandmother on her father's side.  The same one that gave me the Sun Gold Tomatoes!

In the back, the tall one, those are Daylilies.  They will get to be about two feet tall and two feet wide and blooms really pretty yellow-orange-y flowers.

In the back left corner and the front right corner, I have planted Sedum (or Autumn Joy).  These will get up to three feet tall and two feet wide, bloom in the fall  orange-y flowers.  These may have to be moved later on, but for now, they're staying put.

So there!

The two flowers in the middle are both Dianthus.  They will get to be about two feet tall and ten inches wide.  They may or may not survive the winter.

Yes.  We have real winters here.  We may not get a lot of snow, but we do get below zero degrees fahrenheit pretty regularly.

So we shall see.  If not, I'll just plant something else there if I still have "holes" in the area next spring.  Of course, the rest of the plants get pretty big, so who knows.

Right in front, real low on the surface of the bed, is a Hen and Chicks plant.  This thing won't need water very often and will grow in anything and survive just about anything.  So it will spread around in here and occasionally shoot up some blooms about six inches high.  I'll probably even see this growing through the cracks in between the boulders one day.

Next to the larger flower bed in the corner, I planted this Salvia.  It will get to be about three feet by three feet and shoot up these really pretty blue-purple flower-spikes.  It's growing pretty rapidly in comparison to the others, so I planted it where I wanted it.  I only surrounded it with rocks to make the darn thing more noticeable for the time being.  I really don't need children tripping and running into it.

In the green container between the Salvia and my personally made flowerbed (thank you very much!), I kept the Coleus.

This is an annual that will fill up this pot throughout the summer and show off it's pretty purple and green leaves.  I don't think I'll be keeping this pot in that area, but for the time being, my little corner of the courtyard now looks like this:

...at ten in the morning.  Of course, by noon, it will be bright and sunny and then my flowers will get big and tall and gorgeous.

Because I don't kill ANYTHING EVER!

*clears throat*

So then I ordered Bad Boy to mow the grass even though most of it wasn't ready.  The poor grass that has been thriving and getting really tall was running out of oxygen, so off to work he went.

And I received the best gift a mother like me could ask for.

*swoon*

Now... off to shower, aloe my skin and ice my aching back.  It was totally worth it!

I think.  ;-P

Darn This Addiction!

This addiction to MY courtyard is going to kill me.  I'm telling you.

Where have I been you might ask?  How about shopping...

Look closely at that tag.  See "New Mexico" on there?  Oh yeah!  You don't know what you're missing if you haven't had New Mexican Green Chili Peppers.

My mouth is watering right now with the thought of all the cheesy enchilada's I'll be making.

And not only did we do a little shopping, but we did a little gift receiving.

Sun Gold tomatoes anyone?  The Literary Musician's Grandmother on her father's side sent this one over.  Apparently these are supposed to be pretty darn tasty as a snack or on salads.

So, now I really have a dilemma.  I have a pinto bean (that is once again vertical thanks to cheap imitation Scotch tape), two tomato plants (if my Roma Tomato plant survives), cucumber, and a pumpkin vine all growing quite nicely.  Yet, I still only have sand, rocks, weeds and mountains of goatheads.

The only solution was to make a raised bed.

Back to Lowe's Bad Boy went!

There's more soil than that.  In fact, I think I have exactly 1,360,452 pounds of soil in my garage at the moment.  But this picture sums it up.  Bad Boy is going to take this area:

...and clear it of all the pea gravel, goathead stickers, and pull the one weed for me.  Once he's done that, Bad Boy will then proceed to level out the area, get all Tim Allen on me and build me a raised bed.  :-D

*insert second giddy happy dance of the week here*

I don't think I can contain my excitement.  In fact, I was was SO excited about the fact that I'll soon have a little garden to stare at from my kitchen window when I'm doing dishes, that I couldn't stay in the house.  Which brings me back to this:

Remember how disappointed I was in myself for not removing my "crap" before I took a picture for blogging?  Yes, I'm showing you once again.

Note the giant boulders and the debris pile.  And how there's weeds behind that slide there.  Oh and don't miss the dips and valleys and all around general bumpy terrain because we were so great about keeping it level.

*rolls eyes*

Well, Bad Boy and I spent THREE HOURS out there yesterday raking and leveling and rolling boulders while chatting it up with one of our wonderful neighbors that shares the property line.

Yes, the neighbors house is on the property line.  All our neighborhood is like that.  I don't know what they were thinking, whoever "they" were, when they decided to do this.

Stupid.

So all the boulders were moved.  And the ammonia smelling dust clouds.

This used to be our Moose's pit stop.

*crinkles nose*

This was just plain disgusting.  We'll have to go to Sam's Club and purchase about 500 gazillion gallons of vinegar to dump in this area.

*pukes a little in mouth*

ANYWAY.

Once it was nice and level, we swept it.

*rolls in laughter*

It works though.  So, whatever.  The ground is FLAT.  And this morning, it looked like this:

See our cute little fire pit over there?  Neighbor gave it to us free.  ;-)  And see all the rocks that have migrated (on their own of course) to the corner?  Yep.  I'm turning it into a mini rock garden!  I will have plant life in the corner and along the neighbors house, fire pit in the middle and seating all around on a stone patio. 

*daydreams coming true*

In the meantime, since we received the fire pit, we had to repair it.  And since Bad Boy was on a repairing streak for me, he replaced the wheels on the fire pit and took this bad caulking job...

*pause*

*rolls in hysterical laughter*

*end pause*

and turned it into a good caulking job!

*insert more hysterical laughter*

Okay.  I'm not in my thirties at all.

I'm in my dirty thirties!

And now, me and Bad Boy's backs are aching from our addiction to home improvement.

*falls down dead from side splitting laughter*

Horticulturist? Or Plant Assassin?

Despite the grass coming in nicely and the roses bloomed beautifully, it's not all coming up roses around here.  When I first started this venture, I had planted masses upon masses of seeds knowing full well I'd lose some.  I started with:

• 5 avocado pits
• 2 garlic cloves (to grow indoors mostly and just to see if I could do it)
• 2 large trough like planters full of flowers
• 4 basil
• 3 parsley
• 3 oregano
• 3 cilantro
• 3 dill
• 8 roma tomatoes
• 8 delphinium
• 1 paper cup full of daisies
• 1 pumpkin
• 1 cucumber
• 1 pinto bean

 I am now left with this:

This is all that's left of the flowers from the troughs.  No more.  Fungus Gnats attacked and by the time I got a remedy that worked, they had already done their damage.  These don't even look very well.

Just one lonely garlic.  We shall see if it lasts.

This is what's left of the cup full of daisies.  At least two of them look like they're doing pretty darn well. And down to one avocado pit.  And it's not one of the five I started in a jar.  Those all got gross after making significant progress, so I tossed them all in the trash after putting this pit in the dirt announcing to the world, "Going back to God's way of growing crap!".

Yes.  I said "crap" in the same sentence as "God".  Explains why I wasn't Raptured last week.

Here all I have left is one tomato plant... that's real dark leaved, and looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Fortunately, it's not leaning on anything to stay upright (yet) despite my poor photography skills making it look like just that.  In front of the tomato plant, I have the three remaining parsley plants that have decided they'd rather hug the ground and grow rather than reach for the glorious sunshine along with one lonely basil plant up here in the front.

On the right, I have the scotch-taped pinto bean that's been saved from a cataclysmic death by some miracle.  Maybe just because Diva and Tsunami are beautiful and God didn't want to see them sad?  Who knows.  Either way, I'm thankful it hasn't succumbed to my apparent black thumb.

And directly in front of the pinto bean is the pumpkin.

Note the plant in prepackaged material right in front - it's a cucumber plant.  That I purchased to replace the other one that I killed of Tsunami's.  I had to.  Diva wants me to make her a boat load of dill pickles.  I have no idea how to do that.  Dill, water, young cucumbers?  I don't have the first clue.  Of course, the dill all died along with the oregano, cilantro and a gazillion other plants.

I felt defeated.  I'm still feeling defeated.  I do know, however, that it's just a matter of time before I'll learn exactly how to do this.  My guess, is I'm trying to do this by the book instead of going by the way the world intended it to be - cow poop, soil, sun and water.

Since I have to wait until Bad Boy builds me a raised garden bed, I spent money instead.  Fortunately, this has cost me less than ten dollars, so I don't feel too terrible about it

First, Diva insisted on Strawberries.  So we got Strawberries.

Then I needed some pretty annuals.  And Diva insisted on these Celosia.  Which I find to be absolutely amazing and weird.

And some petunia's.

Unfortunately, a couple of the celosia are drooping.  And my strawberries leaves are browning around the edges.  So, I also purchased some plant food.  Which completely blew the $10 out of the water and hopefully assassinated my title of "Plant Assassin".

Beautiful Morning! *yawn*

So, after 2 days of dealing with this...

Yes.  That's our Li'l Sausage.  I looked like hell had blown over, so I insisted that Bad Boy not take a picture of me.  There was quite some debate on how to do that considering the lovely position of this little guy.  But, it was figured out and my head was decidedly chopped off.

The Literary Musician sings, "OFF WITH HER HEAD!" in a rather mouse-y voice, I must say.

Anywhosers, after stumbling out of bed and randomly bumping into various objects around the house this morning to get the day started prior to children fighting and demanding my every  moment, I went outside at seven A.M. to water.  And I find this:

This is the point where I did giddy happy dance.  Well.  In my mind anyway.  *yawn*  For anyone who's ever tried to start grass in New Mexico sandy clay from seed, you know this is quite the feat!  Remember how it looked Saturday afternoon?

After my giddy happy dance in my mind, I watered the grass and flowers admiring how my obsession with my courtyard was slowly coming to fruition right before my very eyes.  Then I decided I needed to brag.  Thank you, Blogger, for your assistance!

So, now that I have bragged while sipping on Pepsi *chug* and yawning constantly, I'll get to the real reason I planned on blogging today - Tsunami's pinto bean and pumpkin seeds along with a rose bush.

Tsunami would be the wonderful six year old daughter of my dear friend, Sassy Mama.

*I love making up names for the people in my life.  Just sayin'*

One day, Sassy Mama comes for an impromptu visit for dinner, which happens frequently, with her two divas in tow.  Tsunami immediately comes to me with a Ziploc bag that is stapled shut with seeds germinating from their water source - a wet paper towel.  Sassy Mama has fake grass in her backyard and no water xeriscaping in the front yard.  She does not grow things.  At all.  And little Tsunami's eyes were full of hope to see pumpkins and pinto beans come to life before her very eyes.  Thank you gracious kindergarten teacher... sort of.

So here comes Heather.  The all powerful, aspiring horticulturist in the making to say, "I'll grow them for you!"

*face palm*

I had just agreed to grow a PUMPKIN vine!  I have no official "garden" for food!  I have goatheads, various other weeds and rocks covering sandy clay!  Some days I wish the Pepsi would kick in a bit faster.  Even if it is at 7:30 at night.

So, I planted them.

The pumpkin is growing out sideways on the right.  The pinto bean is the vertical one there on the left.

Within a week, they turned into this taken on May 6th:

By May 13th:

Now, last week, when Diva (five years old) and I were bringing in the plants to get away from the cruel New Mexico spring wind, we had a minor accident.  Diva accidentally bent the pinto bean over.  The poor child begged and begged for me to forgive her and to save the pinto bean.  I had no way of doing this at the last minute until she said, "Mommy, tape it up like you do my crayons... DU-U-U-H!"  Well, after a quick reminder of how saying "duh" and with so much attitude was uncalled for, I told her I'd give it a try but not to get her hopes up.  So, with quite a bit of Dollar Tree knock-off-scotch-tape, we did this:

It's working!  This picture was taken this morning which is officially one week after the pinto bean catastrophe.  Now, will it continue to survive and flourish?  Who knows.  But it has been nice to not have to deal with Diva nor Tsunami's crushing heartbreak meltdowns.

Also last week, in another catastrophic, heart-wrenching, plant disaster, a branch of the rose bush was accidentally broken off the bush.  Yes, it truly was an accident.  No child did this.  I wasn't terribly worried about it.  It was only two roses near the bottom of the bush that was welcome to go anyway.  However, enter Diva into the mix of how Mommy is Super Woman and can fix anything.  Somehow the tape and pinto bean tragedy made me into a hero and I HAD to save the roses.

*rolls eyes*

My sister then said something about rooting cuttings from a rose bush.  I hadn't heard this before as I'm still a child in the world of gardening, but turned to my trusty Google search bar that solves all my problems everyday to find it was true with some types of roses.

I have no idea what type of roses I have growing in the flowerbed.  They were here when I got here, they're in the wrong spot for where roses need to be and I'm desperately just trying to make it thrive.  Which isn't going very well.

*end rant*

Having had Google find me instruction on how to root roses, we decided to give it a try.  Cut off the top, trim the bottom, pull off most of the leaves, stick in dirt, keep moist and BAM! (I love Emeril!).  You have officially began trying to root roses.

Anyone know why the leaves do that crinkling thing?  I can't figure it out.

Of course, Diva was too terrified of the consequences of letting the roses that were trimmed off go.  I desperately attempted to convince her that it was more just in the world to stick the roses in water and allow them to bloom.  She's too smart, however, and replied, "Mommy, they'll die!"

So, we stuck them in a pot, too.

I have to admit though - I like being a hero.

*smirk*

Facebook Can't Help Me Now.

For quite some time now, I've been posting pictures of my attempts at getting my little New Mexican Casa up to par.  While this is great, and fabulous, and amazing, and wonderful, and convenient, and... Well, it is a royal pain in my hiney to keep clear track of my progress.

As for me, I've always enjoyed blogging.  Correction: LOVED blogging!  Suffice it to say, I never really had much to - say.  It's always just about random aspects of my life: Marriage, motherhood, being a homemaker (rather, learning to become a homemaker), etcetera.

Side note: I love that word despite Blogger's spell check recognizing it in either version of the spelling.

Back on track now, Heather.

After discussing with some of the-most-incredible-women-on-the-planet-in-our-secret-Facebook-group about things that others would see if they really knew us, I confessed that I always wanted to keep a blog and write a book.  Of course, I don't have the personal confidence in my verbal abilities to do such things.  And I honestly don't feel I have a lot of interesting topics to discuss.  However, the-most-incredible-women-on-the-planet-in-our-secret-Facebook-group suggested that I keep a blog about all the gardening I've desperately been trying to do while on an extremely limited budget and paired with extremely limited knowledge.  These most-incredible-women-on-the-planet-in-our-secret-Facebook-group give me a little bit of lift under my wings, so here I am.  My first post.  With my poor grammar, spelling, and limited vocabulary.  But that's alright.  You can correct me and I'll learn!

Just please be nice about it because I tend to write how I speak.  When I'm inebriated.  And have no inhibitions whatsoever.  Which is rare, Mom.  Just an FYI.

*insert nervous chuckle*


*insert mild throat clearing*

SO, first post, eh?  How about we start at the beginning with some pictures of the condition our home was in when we first arrived.

This is May 2007 after some very MILD trimming of the completely overgrown pyracantha bushes.

You can see the dead pyracantha branches on the ground by the light pole and the living bush on the wall to the right of the gate.  That bush was taller than the peak of the roof over the garage and entry to the courtyard there!  *shivers from memory*

Then we brought in and filled up this big guy:

Not only did we fill it up.  But we filled it up and dumped it twice!

So here they are.  New Mexican Casa 2007 vs. 2011 (as of approximately one hour ago):

I just have to say: I HATE PYRACANTHA BUSHES.  I'm pretty confident Bad Boy (aka: my husband) hates them more.  Especially when they started out taller than the house and the root system ran nearly the length of the wall with roots the diameter of an elephants leg.  Alright, I don't know if that's really how big they were in diameter.  But it was pretty darn awful and took Bad Boy all of four summers to get all the roots out.  The last one was just yanked up earlier this month.  I think I pissed him off so he had to chop something up.

This picture is important because it shows how many weeds we had to deal with.  Something that took us years just to get where we're at now.  Of course, it also shows quite well, that children and landscaping rule my world even to this very day.

*Note to self: Start cleaning up your crap before taking pictures for blogging.*

This is the backyard. There's not much to say.  We've killed and burned and killed and burned until the majority of the weeds have been vanquished.  However, walking back here is not quite that safe yet.  Goatheads, or puncturevine as you may know them, blanket the entire area and is the reason we haven't set up the swing set out back yet.  You can see it there on the right of the 2011 picture.  No.  It's not the same one as seen in the 2007 picture.  And yes.  That trashed piece of junk was tossed as well as the fridge.  Well, the fridge was recycled by our electric company and we received $30 back for our trouble of taking it to the driveway.  *giant grin*

Unfortunately, we did lose the big beautiful tree behind the playhouse.  *weeps*  I'm sure that will have it's own blog post.

PS - visit www.goatheads.com to learn all about the nasty beast of the puncturevine.  Our feet still hurt daily and our dog limps constantly.  I wonder if they make shoes for 100 pound dogs?  Hmmmm.

This would be our courtyard.  As for now, it's my courtyard.  I'm in love with the potential of the area.  I love that it will be solely grass and flowers.  I miss the tree.  But it died, so it had to go.  So now I visualize a lush lawn with little children running through an old sprinkler at the end of a hose and I'm in heaven.

I am pretty confident that the courtyard looking like it never had two trees and giant bushes occupying the area are prime examples of just how often I piss off Bad Boy.  That had to be lots and lots of sawing and hacking and Tim Allen gruntin' going on out there.

And here's the front entry.  Flowerbed railing is black.  The rose bush is bigger.  There are lights.  And bulbs are working their way out of the ground.  I cannot WAIT to see the progress by the end of the Summer this year!

And last, but most certainly not least, you can see our children.  Then and now.  This brings tears to my eyes. The Literary Musician was four and one half years old back then.  She's now going on puberty.  *insert sarcasm*  The Diva was nineteen months old... now she'll be off to kindergarten in the fall.  And Li'l Sausage hadn't even been a thought in my mind back then.  Now I'm planning his third birthday two weeks from today.

And yes.  We do call him "Li'l Sausage".  Bad Boy came up with it from the moment we had an ultrasound and he rejoiced about the fact that there would be another male in his world.