It was an awesome day today! I worked out side so long, I have a serious sunburn on the back of my neck. Ouch. Here are some things we did today — Dana worked hard most of the day, too:

• Finished pruning the roses
• Pruned all the shrubs along the south fence, including yellow-twig dogwoods, Hibiscus syriacus, ‘Burning Bush’ euonymus, and ‘Anthony Waterer’ spirea
• Weeded all the beds along the south fence
• Sprayed Roundup on weeds in the gravel area and in the front sidewalk cracks and along the south edge of the front yard
• Sprayed Weed-B-Gone on the dandelions and clover in the lawn
• Used the weedeater to trim down all the weeds and grassy stuff in about 1/3 of the upper area by the aspen trees
• Removed more of the old perennial stalks from the back flowerbed
• Trimmed two of the four lavenders in the back bed
• Planted all the ‘Summer Sorbet’ California poppies — some along the front walkway, in the front bed, and in the back bed in front of the rocks
• Planted peas (the girls did this)

I noticed that my purple tulips are doing very well this year! I thought they were going to fade away and die, since they were getting smaller and weaker for a few years in a row, but this years’ crop have big, bright, beautiful flowers. I think that compost and manure I put in the front walkway bed a few years ago has finally fed the soil and made it feed those tulips in the past year. This is exciting, because I think I’ll plant more tulip next fall if they’re going to do this well!

I also wanted to note that we had freezing weather and snow last Sunday and Monday, and I’m concerned that it damaged the nectarine blossoms. I thought it did for sure, but they looked better today, so maybe they’re OK.

Our backyard neighbor who bought the house with the cherry orchard began cutting down some of the cherry trees today. It was quite sad, especially because they’re in full bloom right now. He only cut two down up closer to his house, so maybe he’s going to leave the ones back by our fence. Not sure though. Some people have no sense of beauty and the joy it can bring to one’s life.