Gardening and Yardwork..Country Style

After mowing on left, before mowing on the right.

Hey Friends, Since I'm still offline till Easter, I'm just sharing a post of what we did LAST year that we are doing again this week-yard work. Enjoy!

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One drawback about living on seven acres in the middle of a large forest is that the yard work is just a little bit more daunting! We've been at it for THREE DAYS! Yep..but when the leaves are all raked out and burned, that will be the worst of it until next fall. You just gotta spread the work out. I can hardly walk because my legs are so stiff.And my right arm..it's hurting for sure. But I feel great--Love the exercise!

For one thing, we have the equivalent of about eight yards. There’s the back pasture (2 1/2 acres), the middle pasture in front of the barn, the back ‘yard’ the front yard, the side yard, the front pasture (2 1/2 more acres)…and well a very long driveway too! ..I think that’s it.

 

 

Tim and the boys  removed a fence dividing the two back pastures with this tractor.

To care for property this big requires some very big tools..like a tractor, a back hoe for removing fence posts, a brush hog for mowing acres of grass. This part is Tim’s job. :o)

   

           

    

And what was Rebekah doing all of this time? Ahh..planting flowers. We pitched in together and bought a tray full and traded with a friend.

She has planted lots of flowers and herbs this year. Her little sprouts are doing so good!

  (Hmm.. so why is Hubby riding this lawn mower? Something is wrong with this picture. LoL!)

The boys’ job is to mow our ‘middle pasture’ and the front and back yards with the riding lawn mower.

They also use the push mower to do detail mowing where the riding lawn mower can’t get through.

 

When we want to water the lawn..well..we need a LOT of water hoses!

 The sprinkler makes it all the way! It's pretty powerful. We have a timer this year. It will be worth every penny. This poor yard needs fertilizer and a lot more water than we've gotten this year.

I think we must be having a drought. It's been very dry for Houston. The azaleas didn't bloom well this year, but the dogwood trees are as lovely as ever.

The next thing to do is go around and pull up or spray all the dandelions and clover. Yes, they are deceptively beautiful..aren’t they?

  

We have lots of ornamental and flowering bushes to care for. The blight was getting on my Camellias and Azaleas, so I needed to rake the season’s fall leaves and mulch away from the base of the bushes. I sprayed them too with a good fungicide.    (Thanks Christian for helping Mom!)

 

It takes a lot of tools to keep up with all the kinds of yard work needed on our property.

Tim stores a lot of tools in the barn, but the rest end up in my potting shed. Tim sure loves his barn-LoL!

        

The roses, on the other hand are being eaten by leaf cutter ants. That’s their  favorite food! So I sprayed them with insectide and sprinkled cayeanne pepper all around the base of all my flowers and bushes.

Rebekah’s Chocolate Mint

 A farmer in New Waverly said that’s all you can do. These pesky critters live off of fungus they grow under the ground after stripping the leaves off of neighboring bushes and trees. You just have to make life miserable enough for them that they decide to leave. You cannot kill them!

The detail work, Tim saves for me. Really, I’m the only one who will pay enough attention to details to care for the flowering bushes, the bushes lining our sidewalk, the ornamentals, and bulbs. So I do the weeding and splitting of things that have gotten out of control.

   Thanks, Hubby, for the new watering can!  He just got me a new flower garden barrel for $18.00 at Sam's Club. His wheel barrow ( a Christmas gift from his parents) is just so heavy. Besides, everybody wants it. I asked him if I could had one and he's so happy that I'm getting so much done outside that he said, "Sure!". Hubbies like giving gifts like that. Tee-hee!

   

I handle every thing except the palm trees and sego palms. They are tough to work with. Tim and the boys have trimmed some of our palm trees and this week trimmed the sago palms down to the nubbins. The freeze really did some damage this year!

         Jacob thinks gutter cleaning and sago palm trimming are jobs for ‘men only’. I do think he’s ready for boot camp now..don’t you? Gee..I just have to show you a ‘smiling’ picture so you won’t think he never does. (These are his ‘cool’ poses.)

Oops..where did this little fellow come from?  Jacob and Tim were cleaning the gutters. What a mess!

I’m glad they didn’t hurt this guy. He better find a safer place to hang out when our family is doing yardwork!

Happy Gardening!  What are you working on this week?