In Jersey, the big yard work happens in the spring. Spring clean up. I spent a number of years avoiding doing yard work each spring (and raking leaves every fall) but now I’m the homeowner and I can’t avoid the yard work more than every other year.

In part as a distraction from Gracie and school and work and part just because it was necessary and the estimate to pay someone to do it was way too high, I spent the last two weekends cleaning out debris from the bushes and mulching. A lot of mulching. 11 lawn and leaf bags of debris (leaves, twigs, etc) and 46 bags of mulch later it’s done. Yes.  46 bags.  All hauled in my little car. But I have to admit, it looks pretty good.

We did have someone trim and clean up the trees. Those I can’t do myself and they really needed it. But the yard is done and I think I can now ignore it again for at least a year.

My garden is having mixed success. The hot pepper didn’t make it, nor did the lavender plant. My thyme is trying to hang in there, but it doesn’t look good. The kale is great. The kale looks wonderful and I am anticipating a great kale pesto soon. The rosemary is good and the oregano also looks great. My tomatoes … well, two plants are clearly dead but and the other two look interesting, but I have baby tomatoes.

Last count there were twenty baby tomatoes on these two plants. I’m trying to make sure they get water, but not too much water and birds don’t get to them. I’m anticipating a nice little sandwich with kale pesto and garden tomatoes and basil. If I could figure our how to make my own mozzarella (I could but it looks like it takes the and precision so I’ll just buy that part) I’d have a totally home grown sandwich.

The pets are doing well. Arthas made it two miles on his morning walk today! He was a tired little puppy at about 1.5 miles, but he did meander back the rest of the way. Leia and Tigger are getting use to not having Gracie around, and they are still super cute. I love the picture above because it really shows the size differential, but they are still super cute.

I need a day off from my weekend, but there are two more weeks before the holiday. Happy November!