Then and now

Last time I posted, it was raining buckets, and I was whining (hey, it's my blog--I'll whine if I want to).  Now that spring is in full flower, I'm no longer whining; I'm sneezing.  But more importantly, my garden is flourishing, so in addition to sneezing, I'm bragging (hey, it's my blog--I'll brag if I want to).  Here's what my backyard looked like back in November:



And here's what it looks like now:







There's been progress in the front yard too.  Here's a pic from last summer:

And here's what it looks like now:



It still needs a lot of work, but at least it isn't a scruffy slab o' grass anymore.

Here are few more. This is a Japanese maple:


And here's one of the roses we got from our neighbor across the street:


And the cymbidiums we got from the neighbors across the street:




And one that I bought for way too much money from a woman that lives near here:





So, we're making progress!  It's fun to watch a boring yard transform into a garden--but it takes a lot of work (and money--*sigh*) to make it happen.

Eddie Rabbit was nuts

Well, I love a rainy night
It's such a beautiful sight
I love to feel the rain
On my face
Taste the rain on my lips

Eddie Rabbit was nuts.

When I moved down here to the land of sun and smog, I figured the title of this blog would be a remnant of my former life as an Oregonian.  Today, though, it has been raining buckets.  I think there are some ducks moving into the lake that is now my front yard, and I'm pretty sure I saw some people whitewater rafting down the side of the street.

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating... a bit.  I'm just irritated at the timing.  We have a visitor from up north, who is spending his spring break with us, and I'm taking this week off from work, my first week off since I started my new job last spring.  So, of course, SoCal has to do its Portland impression.  Really, I wasn't homesick for Oregon.  So, rain, you can go back up north.  Now.

In the meantime, I'm reduced to looking at my many outdoor projects through the window or in pictures. The pic in this post is of the first area I planted after we moved in last summer.  I cleared a bit of lawn just outside the back door for a salad garden.  As of last week, the romaine was looking great, the beets and onions were coming along nicely, the chard was attempting to take over the universe, and the parsley was starting to bloom.  Now it's probably under water, but I'll hold a good thought.

Our current project is landscaping the front yard.  When we bought the place, it looked like this:

It had some scruffy-looking grass, a giant bird of paradise that covered most of the front window, and that's about it.  A few weeks ago we (by "we" I mean my long-suffering husband) removed the grass, and last week "we" started putting up a picket fence and arbor and mapping out paths to turn the slab o' nothing into a cottage garden.  But that means that right now, the front yard is bare dirt.  Well, it was bare dirt yesterday.  Now it's a mud pit suitable for large trucks or bikini-clad wrestlers, with a lake where the path is supposed to go.  I'd post a picture, but I'm not going out there without scuba gear or an ark.