Working in the yard

We have had a couple of nice days - wait, who am I fooling? This is southern California - they're all nice days! but I really wanted to be outside and working with my yard, so I got a bunch of small things done.  First off, I dug out the overgrown ornamental grasses in the front planter box and divided them into smaller clumps, planting the rest of it in the back yard for now.  I bought 10 mums at the 99¢ store to add a little color.  The front entry looks so much nicer now.

This is what it looked like before--
















And this is what it looks like now.



That's a big bag of lemons on our front porch for our real estate agent. 

I have a ton of lemons!















We also have a lot of avocados - we're bringing these when we visit my daughter for the holiday next week - we're not avocado eater and I hate for them to go to waste!







And I have a lot of lemons because I finally decided to get working on trimming back that overgrown lemon tree.  Here's a picture of what it looked like before--



You can't even see where it is!  There are so many random wild branches and suckers growing that you can't see the shape of the tree.









But it looks much better now --

Look! it's a tree!.  It still needs a bunch taken off from the top - there are SO MANY lemons up there!

I also trimmed the little tree in the planter box beside the garage - I don't know what kind it is, but it was leggy and you couldn't walk past on the sidewalk.  The bird of paradise is kind of overgrown, too - I might have to dig that up and divide it, but it looks much nicer now that you can actually see it past the overgrown lemon!  It sure would look a lot better with some grass growing, wouldn't it?!

I also put a bunch of stuff away along the back of the house, and hung up my windchimes and stuff.  Hard to feel like it looks homey with that wonky screen door and light fixture, but it's better anyway.

One thing we do need to do is fix the drainage issue - the water for the whole back patio collects right there, which is the low spot.  We need to jackhammer that section out and put in a drain.  We also want to divert the water off with a rain chain on this corner - the house doesn't have gutters but we're going to put one along the back corner, over the sliding glass door and the door off the kitchen, and have it flow into a gravel drain on the corner there -- that should help, too!

Meanwhile -- still no bathroom, and Dale worked a 21 hour shift last night, so he's just kind of like a zombie.  Actually, he just went back to bed an hour ago - so not much getting done this afternoon.  Maybe tonight and tomorrow, although he's on call all weekend.