Again and again and again!

Not Again!  For the 10th time this year I have gone to start my car and the battery was dead.  Now you might think this is caused by a bad battery.  Wrong!  It is caused by my five little "ducks".  My little ducks are perfectly capable of opening a car door, but apparently closing the door is something they "forget" to do.  Please God, explain to me how you can open a door, still have your hand on it as you climb out of the car and "forget" that you are TOUCHING the door?! The problem is that I do not pass by their side of the car on my way to the house.  Then I might be able to alleviate this problem.
      Now with all this "experience" with dead batteries, I should be working for a car service and jumping cars for a living.  Uh, not quite.  I have a little too much of the "Scarlet Ohara" syndrome.  What is that?  Well, Scarlet is perfectly capable of doing anything she sets her mind to doing, but why do it yourself when you can get someone else to do it right?
     Hmm... right?
     Well of course!  I don't really want to get my hands dirty and stick them into the engine of a car, hoping that I don't electrocute myself or make the car explode.  I know how to set up the jumper cables but have never once done it.  I mean really, why?  Like I said about the flat tire, we have a car service with USAA, I have a Honey, and great neighbors.  But in this case, it was the unlikely but very lovable handyman who came by to give me an estimate for fixing the water infiltration problem in my house.  See what I mean about the Scarlet syndrome?  He barely knows me, yet got tasked with the job because he was "lucky" enough to stop by before my neighbors got home or I had a chance to call USAA.  And he was able to fix the water problem at the house also.   Yeah!

Yard work

           Well, I've put Honey to work in the yard.  It is only fair, he didn't "get" to do anything last year.   As I said in a previous post, he built me a little trash patio for storing our recycling container, trash containers, hoses and such. I am very pleased with the outcome.  It is nice to not have a huge muddy mess to deal with.

This is an updated picture of the Astilbe and Hostas that are beside the side door.  Much better!  

           Since he did such a great job, I decided that my vegetable patch needed to have a little more structure  to it.  I am trying to use the vegetable patch as a small continuous homeschooling science and gardening lesson.  We planted the seeds in little starter trays but the plants were quickly outgrowing their temporary home.  After talking about the terrain and my needs, we decided that a small wall would be ideal.  I went to Home Depot and got the stackable wall "bricks".  Thankfully there were people there to load the cart and the car.  That stuff is HEAVY!
            I am very grateful that Honey is so meticulous about things being level.  It made the wall look great and I am very proud of him.  The bottom row took about an hour to do but it was worth it when the next rows went up so fast.   With the bottom row level the next two rows quickly (10 minutes) were added for a very nice wall for a mere $80.

Elizabeth and I quickly got the plants in and voila' our vegetable garden.  Now we just need to watch it grow!!!

Trash Patio

Completed Patio

For the past two weekends I have put Honey to work.  The area on the side of the house which leads into the laundry room was becoming a huge problem.  With all the snow and rain, the side of the house became a mud pit.  I think it was a bigger cause of my muddy floors than any other area of the yard!
So I put Honey to work building a trash patio, for lack of better words.  We store our trash, recycling and Composter  out there as well as our hose and sprinklers.  Since there is a slight slope, we needed to build stairs as well.  Luckily all the materials in the project were FREE!  That's what happens when you buy a house from someone who was a handyman with 1000 unfinished projects.  I have found probably 20 of the LARGE plumbing pipes buried in the yard (stored in the yard is more like it), another 20 small pipes and multiple shapes and sizes of pavers and bricks.  I have since gotten rid of all of the pipes since I have no use for them, but the pavers keep getting rearranged.
      Honey is very good at making sure that everything is level.  Me? not so much!  So he did a fantastic Job of creating the patio and a new planting bed.  I put in  a few Astilbe and some free Hostas (I divided them up from other parts of the yard)  Hostas must be one of the gardener's favorite friends!  I think it will look even better in the summer when everything is in bloom, but for now, here is the new flower-bed:

You can just see the Hostas poking through the soil.

This is the Forsythia that I used in vases in the house while it was in bloom, but am trying to see if any will root.  Then I can expand my "wall of Forsythia" in the backyard.

Here is a picture of the pile of mulch that I had delivered, I think there is such a thing as too much mulch!