Beauty and the beast(s)

Our flower beds have exploded after the various rain showers and beautiful weather that we have been experiencing the last few days. At lunch today, I was pleased to see the brunnera has taken off and now has its little blue flowers.

Unfortunately, the dandelions and thistle have also come out of hiding to mock me.


Based on this, I have made a hit list of items in the yard that must go, chief among them is the mint that Matt seems to think needs to run free in our yard. I thought this would be a battle of wills between the two of us, but he told me that he had been working on it. Once he saw my list of things to pull, I think he felt a challenge to see how fast he could cross things off the list. Matt is always big on making a "to do" list to organize our weekends, so this is something he can deal with rather than me verbally telling him what I need help with. Something about crossing those items off gives him a real sense of accomplishment.

We got a later start on the yard because tonight was Youth Group with the kids at church. We only have a handful of meetings left, so the group is getting quite small. After dinner, they wanted to be able to sit outside, but the sun set a little too fast for me and I wound up snuggled in a blanket for warmth during the lesson.

Once we got home, we had enough daylight to tackle the intruders. Matt made quick work of cleaning up the mint while I took care of other weeds around the yard. Goliath, of course, stood guard to make sure no one attacked.

Hopefully tomorrow we will make some progress on either the vegetable bed or the deck. Now that the Blue Jackets have no more games, I will have more of Matt's attention for two days until the hockey playoffs start. He should bring the television out so he can watch the games while he scrapes paint off the deck. I'll have to work on that.