My Crazy Life Around The Farm...: 2010 Year in Review.... April... busy month!

April started off with grand plans of making the house look much better. Complete new landscaping, new gutters to remove the older steel ones that were dripping rust onto the metal roofs, getting the metal roofs with surface rust all repainted, adding shutters, etc... lots of plans!

April always gets me in a VERY happy mood because everything starting to become alive and green again!! These were as of April 1st...

Lilac bushes coming back to life...

Bleeding Heart popping back up

1st bloom of the year!

Mo was a sweetheart and bought me a cold frame so that I could start moving my plants I started in the basement out to get used to real sunlight and temps.

April 11th marked the start of the re-landscaping project.... Tried to start removing the grass by tilling it... but didn't work too well and killed my body. So then we decided to turn the soil over and let dirt dry out and grass die. After that I tilled it again and we raked out the chucks of grass.

April 11th

April 19th

Mid April and things were really starting to grow! All the fruits were starting to bud. Was the 1st year after planting the blueberries, grapes, blackberries, raspberries that I was able to get any fruit - planted 3 yrs ago. These pics were all taken April 15:

Apple Bubs

Grapes

baby strawberries

Blueberries

Lilacs Starting to Bloom!!

By the end of April Mo & I were into trying to figure out what we wanted to plant as far as landscaping... did a lot of online research, books, asking people for ideas, etc. I never truly landscaped before so this was all new to me. I was just flowers and food gardener. We started to buy some plants after heading out to different nurseries and seeing what was available, prices, etc. We picked based on color, maturity size, and full sun aspect as these were for a south facing area. We moved these around many times trying to figure out what we liked before we were ready to plant. Had a few nights of frost warning that we had to put them all up on the porch as drape an old sheet over them... that was a pain as some of those plants were not the lightest!

Planning the island... we later found out waaay too many
silver mound in there - never seen them get so big!

shrubs for the front - dogs & barn cats wanted to give their 2cents...

Ornamental grasses around the huge tank.. worked out great!

Then I ended the month with a little vacation to sunny FL! My brother was getting his promotion to Commander in the US Navy! So very proud of him. They had a nice ceremony for it with some family attending. Later on Lara (his wife) planned an early 40th b-day party for him since a lot of people were in town. We went to watch Duncan play flag football - he is VERY into sports! That Sunday was Duncan's 1st communion as well, was glad I got to be part of that. Mark's friend and co-work (also husband of Lara's business partner Joy) took my brother, myself and the boys on a boat ride on the inter-coastal. The boys wanted to stop and swim a little - we got somewhat close and the boys chickened out and then we found out we were stuck in the mud... so Mark & Glenn had to push the boat out of the mud as me & the boys sat on the front end away from propellers. Good times...lol Also Mark & I took the boys to their church festival - boys had fun riding rides and playing games. Was nice to spend time with everyone that was there! And to meet Lovey their dog! And to let my body rest up for all the landscaping work that was ahead of me at home...