Rain Rain Go Away

The weather in Provo has been taunting us for weeks. We get a few nice days and then a week of rain, over and over again. I've been dying to get out of the house and let the girls run wild in the backyard and finally on Saturday morning it happened.

We have a strip of gravel next to our driveway which we noticed last year grew these awful pokey balls of thorns. It caused quite a few tears from little barefoot neighborhood children, and I promised myself that this spring I would take care of them early.

Well, this year the little patch exploded! These things are EVERYWHERE! Tyler and I have been weeding like crazy to get rid of them before they dry out and cause problems. While we were on our knees brainstorming if there was a quicker way to do this, Tyler came up with the great idea of just digging up the gravel and planting some flowers instead! The Landlords approved the idea and so Saturday morning we started!

Tyler is a super hard worker, and if he is going to do something, he is going to do it right and do it nice. With this particular project, doing it right and nice ended up being a LOT of work. We had originally thought of building planter boxes, putting down a barrier and dumping fresh compost in. But because we don't really have 2 pennies to rub together we decided to dig the gravel out and replace it with different dirt. Tyler spent hours digging up the gravel, putting it in his Dad's truck, driving out to Grandma's property, dumping the gravel dirt and then digging a hole in the field to get some new dirt. Over and over. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

The neighborhood kids loved it. Alex was in heaven and spent the day running around with handfuls of worms playing in the dirt.

The project probably still wouldn't be done, but we had some surprise helpers. My brother and sister in law came and put in a few hours work, watched the kids so we could go on a date in the afternoon and THEN took us out to dinner! Amaizing right?

Tyler's Dad let us use his truck and trailer and then helped Tyler do some digging. We even has some last minute compost donations from a great neighbor and Tyler's Dad, so our little garden strip looks super healthy and rich.

The only trick now is going to be planning what we want to plant and where. I can see us running off to the greenhouse and blowing our grocery budget on all the beautiful flowers and plants! I'm already set on Basil and green onions. We have a few packets of wildflowers to plant and with my mother's Day flowers, plus the ones Danielle gave us, we already have a few things in the ground.

There is just something so satisfying about growing and building and doing things with your hands. Last summer I spent a lot of time sitting in the yard with an infant on my lap, watching kids play. This summer I anticipate each day's agenda to be about the same, except I'm so excited at the prospect of playing in my garden while the kids run around and laugh. Once I eradicate the patches of prickly thorns that have spread to the yard in patches, I'm taking on the Dandelions. I'm wondering if it's been all the rain, but I've seem more Dandelions in Provo this year than ever before. So if anyone has any tips, i've got my work cut out for me!