Backyard cleanup

Right before winter set in we decided to take down some of the smaller pine trees growing in random places in our backyard. While normally I'm not really for cutting down trees, most of anything growing outside was planted in very bizarre places.

So, down the trees came. One of them we used as our Yule tree and the other one, well, it's just going to be used as firewood for our fire pit.

But, after we had cut everything down, well we got a little lazy and left the branches, logs and stumped basically scattered throughout our little yard. In our defense, our village doesn't collect yard waste during the winter  and we have nowhere to store the yard waste. 

Since yesterday was the first really nice (and warm) day we've had since November, Garry and I went outside and started bagging up the yard waste.

Ten contractor bags and 1 hour later, we were exhausted and had maybe a third of the yard done. On top of the stuff from the trees, we're also shoveling up the mound of fallen pine needles that have collected over the years.

Eventually, the stumps will be ground down and we'll spread some lime and grass seed. While we're waiting for that to take off, we'll probably have to take our puppy out front. I doubt we'll have time to get all of that accomplished before April considering our schedule is getting more and more packed by the minute.

I also noticed in the yard that our bulbs are starting to sprout and almost pull themselves out of the ground. I think I'll need to dig a little deeper and replant them as the actual "bulb" is exposed. We have a little bit of landscaping that needs to happen this month as well.

In the meantime, I'm working on a landscaping plan for the backyard. Since we're planning on doing something a little more complicated than just some wildflower seeds scattered about, it's going to take some careful planning to make sure it looks right.