Yard gone wild

We tamed the front yard. My neighbor saw me, shears, and my unruly weird bush thing, and walked over with an electric thingamabob that shaped and trimmed the sucker just fine. Thank you neighbor, I knew it was only a matter of time before you caved to the sorry sight of me failing miserably at yard work, and handed over your cool garden tools. Just for that, I won't say a word about your seemingly pastel fuzzy morning slippers. It was early, they coulda been red and terry cloth.

I got McRed to help me. Mainly, my complete mower blow-out showed him just how serious I was when I said 'I have no clue what I'm doing.' Turns out, I didn't blow up the mower. I just put too much oil in, and it was burning all the oil. Hubby McRed dumped some out, mowed the front lawn, weed-wacked and weed-killed (I'm organic as can be, and tend to pull them, he went straight for the round-up) and even pruned. I finally got him to agree to an every other Sunday work-on-lawn-and-bond time. Go me. The kids had a blast. Being outside wore them out so much they actually napped.

Now our front yard looks actually decent, which means I need to plant some shade plants and change the dead plants in the containers to live ones.

As for the back yard, well now that the front is in order, I can go back to pulling, killing, and whacking everything I don't like. I did get quite a ways through it, but have so much more to do. We're probably going to end up roto-tilling it in September and not August like I thought. I'm not that fast at yard work. And, yes, I can't help myself. Despite swearing I wouldn't plant anything, I have this one nice bed that's all empty... and all these plants... heee heee.... but only in beds, and not along the fence. Yikes.

I hate being the one with the backyard that makes neighbors go, 'well, our yard could be worse, it could be theirs....' heh.

Oh and SWEETNESS my artichoke is coming in!!!