Oh my aching muscles!

I hurt! My muscles hurt. Today my husband, son and I began our spring clean up in the yard. Despite the muscle aches and pains, I love to work outdoors and prefer it to basically all indoor household chores, especially cleaning bathrooms. So I ran the mower with the thatching blade attached, raked the grass that didn't make it into the bag on the mower. My son helped with the raking and my husband did some weed whacking and picked up piles of raked grass. The next step will be fertilizing, but with heavy rain predicted, my husband will wait so the fertilizer will not be washed away.

Last year we had extensive landscaping done on our property. Since we had a pool installed two years ago, the back yard was first with lots of shrubbery and stone instead of grass - actually there is just one small patch of grass to break up the stone and give the pooch a place to "go." Then we moved on to the front yard where we had a retaining wall installed along with new flower beds and lots of new trees and shrubs. Unfortunately, some of the vegetation did not survive and will be replaced by the landscaper. While the crew is here, they will re-mulch the beds, trim up the shrubs and install some more plants. The only thing left for me will be to plant some annuals to give color to the mostly shrub filled beds.

I have already begun to plant the vegetable garden, planting peas and lettuce which like cooler weather. In mid-May, I will add beans, tomatoes, cucumbers along with some dill and basil. A few years ago, my husband built four raised planting beds for the vegetable garden which he affectionately calls "the over boxes." The are great for me who has already had two knee surgeries and kneeling to garden is not real comfortable. They are easy to plant and weed and with a roll of hardware cloth around the top, they are almost rabbit and ground hog proof. I am also planning to plant some sweet peas along a decorative fence in front of the shed, some sun flowers - mostly the smaller varieties and a few other flowers.