If you read this blog from time to time, you know that our group of friends like to do harmless, yet decorative,
pranks at each others homes. A few weeks ago, we decided to decorate our friend
Lynne's yard for her 40th birthday. We wanted to do something unique - no pink flamingos or tombstones(that's for her 50th!). Lynne is a British expatriate so we thought we'd have our own little tea party in her yard.
We used 99 British flags for the lawn and 100 tea bags for the tree. Luckily it wasn't raining or we would have stained their yard! We'd wanted to have giant cut outs of the Royal family but couldn't find any and didn't really feel like trying to make them. Lynne's daughter and husband decorated the windows and her car with washable paint too! All in all, we think it turned out rather nicely and Lynne said it was a fun surprise.
Today was almost as perfect as could be. Temp in the mid to upper 70s and sunshine with just enough clouds. After church today (and lunch with friends afterwards), we continued our weekend of work.
Chip painted the wood around the windows.
I decided to tackle the large shrub and other plants in the bed in our front yard.
Here is what it looked like before
and after (about 1 hour later!)
Once we were done with that work, I decided to look at some of nature's calling cards.
I found that we have a ton of spiders (some quite large - 1/2 inch body size) along the shrubs in the front yard.
I really enjoyed the contrast of summer and fall as the flowers are still blooming but the leaves are begining to turn and fall.
So, after having bought the stain almost a year ago, we finally got around to getting the fence
restained. Chip spent about a week power washing and spray staining. The only part that isn't finished is the new fence around the garden area. It still needs to dry out before it can be stained. Oh, and the swing set is going to need a new coat as well but since a few warped boards need to be replaced, we'll probably
restain it in the spring.
Before:
After Power Washing:
New Stain:
Chip spent today scrapping paint from around the windows. We are getting new windows in a couple of weeks but some of the wood needed to be replaced first. Chip wants to get that wood painted and repaint the other wood on the house before the windows are installed.
I spent the afternoon trimming trees (we have two growing in the same place, twined around each other), looking at the renegade pumpkin plant in our compost pile....
...and finding rabbit skulls in the shrubs.
Yes, that is a rabbit skull. At first we thought it might be some kind of hawk but after flipping it over, we noticed that there were teeth.
There are no other skeletal remains in the location so my guess would be that a bird brought it over to eat, after finishing up the main course.
So, there you have it. Fun times around our household!
