Friday, May 17, 2019

Luggy, lethargic and lazy!

I don't know what's going on but both my husband and I feel so LUGGY, LETHARGIC and LAZY! We had some 90 degree weather two weeks ago, and both of us had lots of energy (well... "lots" meaning we could go out and work for a couple of hours), and got outside and worked in our yard and got quite abit done.


But now.......... two weeks later........ weather has cooled down and is cloudy and some drizzle, and neither of us want to even go outside and walk around our yard! We are couch potatoes this week (and probably last week too)! What is going on?????  Well I do have one excuse... I had my FIRST colonoscopy ever last week, so the two days before that were spent with me stressing out over it! And then the day with little or not food, and then the NIGHT (oh what a night) of not sleeping and living on the toilet for 8 hours).  So that entire procedure took the poop (literally) out of me for a few days.


Do any of you feel this way after a bunch of physical work? I don't remember feeling this way in the past. We can't figure it out. We have NO desire to go out and work in the yard... and boy is there still alot to do.  Do we just go with it and sit and chill out, or do we make a supreme effort to go outside and work. Hum.m.m.m.m.m.m. (I have a feeling we will be waiting for the energy to come back! and sure hope it does).

We DO have a lot of projects in progress and got a start on a few things.

As the photo above shows, we got the area around our lilac bush all cleaned out, and put about 6 bags of purchased garden soil in the hole that is/was going to be our pond eventually...... it was about a 6" hole........well we gave up on the pond idea and decided to leave the lilac there. So filled it all in, plus taking two large wheelbarrows of dirt from our front yard walkway area. We are getting it ready to put a little fountain in there where the slab is (below photo) and I also got a large geranium "bush" split and transplanted there.  I'll plant a few small flowers around the fountain.


We/hubby has to dig a trench to bury the electric cord from the house to the pond (below). I went and bought and laid out the pipe and somewhat have cleaned up that area - still have to spray the weeds.


Our poor back "lawn" looks like a bomb went off there - we dug out as many dandelions as we could and I sprayed the weeds also (below). It is full of holes now and we have to be really careful when we walk on it (so I won't fall and break something)! Still not sure what we're going to do with it.


I decided to lay down tarps on the entire dangblasted thing to kill everything! I still need two more smaller tarps. There IS some nice grass growing along the side of the house so will leave that.

It's so JUNKY back there! Since this picture was taken, I did get some of it moved and/or put away in the sheds.

I have a few flowers growing in our back yard raised flower beds.

Iris and a small lilac bush and a snowberry bush.

My peonies came up from last year and have lots of buds on them!
This is what we're thinking/hoping our backyard will look like someday, except may have a small area of lawn somewhere.. if we can keep the weeds out!

I've painted out a circle for the "fire pit" like this one above. We/hubby needs to dig it out.  We have one of those portable fire pits, and also some nice chairs hubby got from the thrift store. I need to paint them too. (more projects). 

I would LOVE to have a little garden cottage/shed in our backyard, like this one. A girl can dream can't she???? I LOVE all the pink accents. (our house is this exact same color!).



Front yard projects:

Got the dirt area by the walkway dug down about 4 inches, laid some landscape cloth (two layers) and are in the process of putting down some river rock. This is what I bought in bags from Lowe's and was not NEAR enough! We would have needed 22 more bags.


So I went to the local nursery and bought a yard of larger river rock.


So we need to get that all shoveled out of the truck onto the dirt area by the walkway. We used to have a raised wall there with flowers, but it attracted too many earwigs. 

And we've dug out an area above our rock wall to lay down some rock so that it will be level with the lawn and easier to mow.


We are also going to dig out our front flower beds to be a little bigger, and make curves so it will be easier to mow there.  I have the lines drawn.. hubby needs to dig!


My 50 cent lilac bush is doing great as is the 50 cent snowberry bush (from last year). We have some pansies coming up that survived the winter, and our Quaking Aspen tree is doing great! 

The Iris in our front corner are doing beautifully! I meant to dig some up and split them, but didn't get to it soon enough. Will now wait until they have all bloomed and are done.  I managed to find a beautiful golden lilac at the garden nursery the other day. I may plant it by the fountain, and then next year when it splits, I'll put one in the front.




I also could not resist buying a few plants to put into my pots... I was going to wait, but they all called to me at the nursery! We will still be having some freezing nights so going to put the pots in the garage at night until June 1st or so.



So many projects only half done!  I think that's why we're feeling so lazy and lethargic. Getting overwhelmed.

And after all the rock is laid in the front walkway bed, we are going to have a small deck/porch built off of our front door, just to enlarge the area for sitting and to make it safer. Right now, when you open the storm door, you practically fall off the stoop! The stoop is way too small. Who designed these things anyway????  See that tiny "stoop" by the front door? It barely comes to the edge of the door. We're going to have a deck built at house level, that extends to right between the two windows. It will have a railing for safety and steps going into the yard, and also at the end to the cement walkway. I'm in the process of designing it!



There are more projects but I won't list them here. They haven't even been started yet! Will try to finish the ones we HAVE started and show some finished projects in the next few weeks. In between all of this, I've had my colonoscopy and then a couple of days ago, a bout of vertigo. Darn. I thought that was done with. And then next Monday a surgery to remove my gall bladder. Once I'm done with that, I hope the rest of the summer is free of medical worry and issues.

I hope we are both back to full energy mode (which is about 1/4 level compared to those younger folks!).. and get back to our yardwork.

How can a small lot in town be so much work??????????

Take care everyone.