Yardwork...and such

I thought by giving up Facebook for Lent, I would have more time to blog about life here. However, Lent coincided with a visit from my mother. Therefore, my time wasn't my own. After putting the kids to bed most nights, I've been talking with her or watching a movie. Mom finally went home yesterday. And while it was great having her here to help deal with kids and clean house, it's nice to get back to normal here and start focusing on my Lenten goals.

One of those goals was to exercise more and get more things done around the house. Today left me feeling pretty accomplished. It was eighty degrees here, which was awesome. After church, we took a family bike ride. Tori rode her bike, Stefan rode in the trailer with me, while Merrick rode in the trailer with Kevin. We ended up riding all through Civano.

Civano very much reminds me of Takoma Park, MD. It seems like a nice little hippie like town. Many of the houses have solar energy, they have a big farmers market in the summer, and the houses are all different beautiful colors. Many homes are the Santa Fe look, but some are not. I enjoy just looking at them and seeing all their different features and decorations. One house had a fence made of wire that was filled with rocks. So therefore, it was a rock fence, but not cemented together. I thought it was a very creative idea of doing this. Another house, had all different kinds of plants. It was almost hard to bike through it because some plants stuck out at various areas. I saw Agave, aloe, and a huge yuca tree. It was just impressive.

I didn't mean to bike through Civano, but Kevin didn't stop me and Tori didn't remind me to turn on Drexel. We were heading to the corner store for doughnuts (Tori's motivation for going bike riding). After a while in Civano, Tori go very whiney, but she did indeed make it all the way to the Corner Store. We sat outside and had our treats. We all shared a bit with the baby and we all shared with each other (awww....).

After we got home, I wasn't hungry for lunch (wonder why) so I decided to tackle a long put off project of trimming the backyard bushes. Because our home was the model home, alot of plants were planted just for show (literally). This week, I've been really looking at how this will work for the long run. I've decided to pull up a few desert rose bushes and some other bushes that just seem like they are being strangled in the mass of bushes they planted. The desert rose bushes were planted I think as a means of building a privacy screen. However, for one, we don't have anyone behind us and never will...and two...the rose bushes grow AWAY from our fence...and it's just not working...One is working but it needs major pruning. I started it, but it's taking a while.

In short, I trimmed alot of bushes today, pulled some, pulled a rose bush that was growing by the air conditioning units (really, who puts one THERE???) and I placed goof plugs where I needed to. Goof plugs help plug up the areas of the irrigation system we don't need, therefore helping conserve water.

I even got to trim a bush up front that Kevin said was out of control. So all in all, it was one productive day. While I miss gardening back east, I have to say gardening and weeding out west is a lot less tedious. For one, weeds grow slower, so I have more time to get them before they get out of control. For another, I'm growing a lot less, therefore, it's easier to keep track.

Maybe I'll get a raised bed going...maybe not. Then again, considering I'm going back east for a month in June, I maybe shouldn't leave Kevin in charge of a garden...nah...I'll take a year off..