A Years Progess!

Good Morning!  I missed writing last week.  We are on the count down to two big graduations.  My oldest graduates this Saturday from Murray State with her Masters and our youngest in a week from High School with honors.  To say the least we have been busy......

But...on to what a difference a year makes. We bought the house in AR, Aug 2011 and last Spring, I started dividing plants that I had here and carrying them over to improve the landscape.  We made a FAST trip over for one night on Friday and everything is looking so Pretty!

Fall 2011, No Grass, Bushes overgrown, and Ugly shutters!

  Do you see the concrete sidewalk ^ gone and a place for new stone sidewalk left when we laid sod.

2012- New Shutters, new deck, bushes cut back, hostas & day lilies planted

New sidewalk! Yes I like this better.

2012- Pretty bare- See last picture, blocks are now gone.

I added some good home grown horse manure! 5/13

Stained the deck 5/13

Plants are looking GREAT!

Removed the retaining blocks.  I like it better this way!

It has now, actually been a year and half, two Springs and one Summer.  What a transformation a yard can take in a short amount of time.  I didn't have the resources to go out buy new landscape.  I divided plants in my yard here and swapped for plants to use in this yard.  The landscape didn't cost a thing!

Retaining Walls & Steep Banks

Retaining walls.....whew I need some big ones.  The back yard really slopes off.  It has a lot of trees with roots and rocks.  There were a bunch of brick stones that are used for retaining walls in front of the house, that the previous owner had put there.  Of course, I don't want them there, so I decided to move them to the back of the house.  Those things are HEAVY!  I would put 4 or 5 in the wheelbarrow at a time.

These are them. I would like another color, but these are what I have.

****OMG, I had forgotten how ugly those green shutters were (as purchased) check out the Before & After Vacation House.

OK, I have never built a retaining wall.....How hard can it be?  I got my shovel, a hoe, and a level.  Since, I can't do the whole yard.  I thought I would use them around a tree or two, in order to form a level area for flowers.

The ground is sloping, so if you just placed the block on the ground....it would be sloping too. Start your first block in the lowest area, which was below the tree.   If, I had started on the side on higher ground, things would not work out.  I had to level the dirt before placing the first block.  As, I went around the tree, I had to dig into the dirt more and more to get the block level, as I was going up hill.  Therefore, only the lower area, below the tree is done.

This was NOT a fast task....anyone can do it, it just took Patience....Then after you get your first one placed, move on to block two.  Now you have to make sure it is level from front to back AND level to the one next to it.    I am excited to add some good dirt and hostas on my next trip over.  And, do another tree.  Yep, more blocks to move from the front yard.

I need a picture of the side to show you.  But the last stone that you see on the top level on each side of the tree, 1/2 of it is resting on dirt.  If I wanted to go further around the tree, I would have to go 3-4  high on what I already have laid.  Hmmm....do I?

June 2013, I took another picture for you of the side.  Looks different from the above picture.  Plants and mulch and some rocks that I picked up to finish the circle.

Some of the rocks I have ran into.

Check back for an update on the retaining walls.  I have been busy here at home dividing hostas and grasses to take over on my next trip.  Why buy plants, when I can divide the ones that I have.  And speaking of grasses. We have a bank out in front that is steep between the front fence and road.  It is really hard to mow and a lot of it doesn't have anything growing.  I have some grass.  I call it Monkey Grass, but it may be something else.  It grows really good for me.  Matter of fact it wants to take over in some places, so I dug up two Kroger Paper sacks full up and took it to AR and planted it on that bank.  I hope it goes Crazy!

I mentioned Rocks.....We did some leveling with the tractor on one trip over and oh my, the rocks.....I started throwing them in a pile, next to trees....I don't want the lawnmower to hit them.  I guess that is why you see rock walls in peoples yards and gardens in the hills.  I made a rock garden with some grasses and Brown-eyed Susans.  Excuse the weeds, I sprayed them.

The Last Racing Weekend!

Life has been a little busy around here and we haven't been able to get away to our home Arkansas as much as we would like.  We did go this past weekend thou.  It was a must!  It had been a month and it was the Last weekend of Racing at Oaklawn.  That would be Thoroughbred Horse Racing.  The Arkansas Derby was running on Saturday, which was the last chance to earn points at Oaklawn to advance to the Kentucky Derby. The Arkansas Derby is a Million dollar purse.  So we were excited that we would watch a horse run that would be at the Kentucky Derby.

We spent ten hours at the track that day.  We started out with Dawn at Oaklawn. On certain mornings, Oaklawn host this event at 8am.  They provide coffee and pastries, you get to watch the morning workouts and they have several speakers.

They also offer barn tours on one of the vans.  I was excited to get behind that fence and see the going ons.

We only saw a couple of fancy trailers.....Not what you would expect expensive race horses to traveling in.

This is nice!

All the barns are named after famous race horses.

On the tour our bus driver pointed out a log building that was just inside the fence that is for track people, but said we could eat there to.  He explained that you better be going straight to the restaurant.  He also said food in there was about half the cost of anything inside the track.  Since, we had a lot of time to kill, we decided to go have a late breakfast.  The breakfast was HUGE! For five dollars, I got scrambled eggs, hash browns, a biscuit with gravy, (YUM) and 3 pieces of bacon.  Lots of trainers and barn help filtered in and out.  Some just came in to place their wagers for the day.  Yep, they had several machines in there, so bets could be placed.
I was really glad that I got out of bed and went!  I see me making several early trips next year.  And hey, when you go that early, you get to park, Really close!