Blue and Green, with a side of Purple

It was another gorgeous day today.  All deep blue and bright greens.

And purple.  Purple makes me happy.  :-)

I can't resist a lap around the garden at every opportunity.

The geese continue to mind their nest.  I took this just after a boy and his dog walked by.  There was quite a bit of honking and flapping.

Today we went out back and started to tackle our landscape.  The scale of the clean-up is daunting.  Years of downed branches and leaf litter.

The dogs watched from their pen.  Charlie squawked from the kitchen.  :-)

The Tramp took the old hot tub platform apart.

Which consisted of lots of old wood full of huge nails.  The electrical will need to be capped off as well.  At the moment it's just chopped off and exposed.  Who does this stuff???  Sheesh.

While he did that I sanded and painted the stools for the kitchen.  We bought five colors of spray paint and decided on the blue.  I know lots of people are enamored of spray paint, and it has it's place, but I mostly find it messy and difficult.  I'm much better with a brush.

Now the flowers are finished we chopped back the overgrown azalea that was blocking the deck stairs. I know it will grow back in a flash.  :-)  I raked up one trash can and six bags of trimmings, leaves and litter and the landscape is starting to appear.  There is a sweet round stone patio coming back to light. Part of it is there under the compost bin.  The other half of it is in the dog pen, slowly getting covered by sand and dirt each time it rains hard.  A drainage issue we need to solve.  In the center of the picture and to the left, next to the deck, are the vestiges of gardens bordered by stones.

I found stepping stones to the hot tub!  To be fair, this part of the yard was much cleaner when we first saw the house, but two years of tons of leaves and branches has left me wondering how in the world anyone could keep up with it.  I will admit, hot weather, snakes and mosquitoes put me off a whole lot a bit too.  :-)  I also found a mysterious electrical wire poking up out of the ground, going from somewhere to somewhere.  You can just see it to the right of the stones.

And here's another bit further on.  Hmmmmmm.

 Now most of the platform is gone we have all the stone, rocks and bricks to move.

Groan.

Water drains across our yard and down to the neighbor's.  Over the years it's created a gully.  It seems a good place to throw the stone.  I have visions of a proper dry riverbed.  Heh.  We'll see.  Just moving this stone will be a chore.  :-)

There is an endless supply of tree seedlings to remove too.  The Tramp always comments on how "things just grow" here -- fast and furiously!

I was initially pleased there was no rear lawn.  I had rose colored visions of dogs running happily through the trees and no grass to cut.  But once I found out about the snakes and experienced the mosquitoes, and realized I would be wading through the underbrush to clean up after the dogs, I came to my senses!  I am also hoping opening things up will cut down on the mosquitoes a bit.  They were out in force today.  Ouch!

I did sew yesterday.  Nothing earth-shattering, just drawstring covers for my various magnifying lights.  Simple but satisfying.  Tomorrow I dive back into t-shirt quilts.  Happy Easter everyone.  :-)