My back yard is gross. It has loads of potential, LOADS. It could look so beautiful. For the last 4 years I have had on average 2 to 3 people come out and look at it (a year) and come up with some ideas and give me some prices. Something has always not settled well with me about each person. Maybe because they said we didn't need top soil if we put down sod, or maybe because I asked about the water-flow and they brushed it off or never truly answered my question about if they had permits.

We had poison Ivy, evil spiders, loads of dog poop, thorns, weeds and flies from the dog poop. I never go out there. I always look out the back window longingly wishing I could go sit in a clean pallet of grass and sit with the dogs and BG and read a book while she crawled around. So I had told my beighbor I thought whoever did his backyard (grading and soding) did a really good job, so when he had them out last week to take a look at his hill, he had them come over and speak to me. I liked them a lot and as the neighbors water never sits in his back yard because it was graded properly I felt pretty good about them.

Yesterday when I paid them for the first bit of work they did, the owner told me he has sheep (as he saw my Shetland Sheepdog and remarked he had some sheep he thought me might like to chase) I then said "Oh I knit, how neat you have wool" he responded "oh thats to bad I just had the sheep and our 2 alpaca's sheared and didn't have anyone to give the wool to so I had to get rid of it". DANG! Then I mentioned I spin and he was all guffawed as he has never met a spinner before. I lent my wheel out so didn't have it to show him. What a small world it is indeed.

So anyway back to the yard. I have some before and after pics for stage 1. Next wednesday they will lay down sod, plant 15 tree's on our hill and install 4x20 steps going up the hill. The dogs will NOT be allowed to go on the new grass, I'll be taking them up the hill (exercise!) and possibly buying a small dog pen for when I don't have time to stay out there with them so they go. I am so flipping excited about this I can not tell you.

The front before:

The front after:

(I am in love with my new skinny tree's)

The hill before:

The hill after:

Back of the house, the most covered window is our bedroom:

After:

I need ideas for this area. when they sod it and all that they will create a nice even bed there. I want to plant Herbs and roses. Suggestions? Low maintenance stuff would be best. I can't wait to create a sort of container garden on the patio and have a topiary of some sort. I've killed a few, but mainly because I never go outside to mind them.

Left side before:

Left side after:

The left he butterfly bushes and those iris things I think they are called. There will also be some beds here for me to have fun with. The one neat thing about our Jungle was that we had all sorts of birds and bugs around because everything was so wild. Loads of blackberries I never tried because the husbeast feared I would keil over if I ate any. Now it's all gone. Now maybe I can plant blueberries! I would also love a willow tree. But for now we are tapped out and have hopefully upped our property value! I'll show more pix next week when part 2 is finished.

I owe my blog a "10 months" entry on BG as she is indeed 10 months old now. Here is something fun and related. It's me at I think about 5 years old, maybe 4. I've had glasses sense I was 18 months old.