Spring is in my backyard

Things are turning a corner for me. I think it is all because of the weather. For the past 4 days it has been warm enough to play outside and with playing outside comes a realization that things have been growing back there.

I have quite a lot of flower beds due to my mother and Nate's grandmother's gardening skills. Ever since we moved here we have been bringing back a garbage bag full of perennials in the trunk of our car. Each year I have had to dig another flower bed to accommodate their multiplying. That is until I got pregnant with Elizabeth and I stopped adding onto the beds; so now I have nine total...full of beautiful West TN. flowers that keep multiplying and taking up more space. I'm at the point now that I give them to neighbors and friends gladly just as my family has me.

But it never fails when Spring starts knocking at the door of my life I am reminded of how I ended the previous Fall season...tired of watering and pulling weeds and cutting down dead stalks. So, that is what my gardens were left like all through winter - weedy, dead flowers and old mulch. I first notice by beds again when I see those faithful daffodils pop their resiliant heads up out of the cold ground. When I take a closer look to make sure new growth is actually what I'm seeing (usually with my hat, coat and gloves on) sure enough I realize Spring has not failed us yet and boy do I have a lot of work to do.

All that to say the last two days I have tested my young daughter's ability to be temporarily 'unwatched' in the backyard (it is fenced in) while I stick my nose to the ground and cut layers and layers of dead stalks, then rake it all up, and begin thinking about pulling the grass that has overgrown my beds. And all the while Elizabeth passed the test with flying colors. She is a true outdoor independent soul. For over an hour today she played in the sandbox, pushed cars, carried babeeeeee around, even rolled around on our trampoline (I zip her up in it) while I worked as fast as I could.

I managed to get all five beds cleaned out in the backyard the past two days and have discovered daffodils are not the only things coming back with vengeance.

So...here's to many Spring and Summer days to come filled with weed pulling, water sprinkling, and flower admiring experiences!

Enjoy the pictures from years ago(I couldn't find any more recent)...that will give me hope to carry on until the last frost of April!