We Have A Lawn!

Oh my, I haven't posted in like 9 days or so! I did write this week (i'm really not a big, fat, slacker!), those pieces of writing just never found their way to Scintillate. Why?! Well...that's not completely my fault. Our computer and internet have both been really nutty. But I guess i can't blame it all on the computer. I have also been quite busy. We were gardening last weekend, we had a couple baseball games this week, and we had a yard sale this weekend! I'm wiped! Anyway, the gardening was successful (surprised? well my thumb is not by any means green so you should be very impressed, actually), and one of the results of our toiling was....
We now have a front lawn! Kind of! Almost! Its getting there, anyway. Our yard is, well, spotty. "Pitiful", "pathetic", "mud-hole-ish" are all apropos adjectives. In fact, i am distressed to admit that one of its greatest moments was when I noticed that "hey, at least we've got a couple green weeds in there". Bad, i know. Most of the damage is in the middle of the yard and in front of the house though, at least. We do have some pretty good green stuff in certain places. Plenty to warrant the use of a lawnmower, which i'm sure Jojo is happy about. So, yeah, our lawn doesn't have very evenly distributed grass, but that isn't its only shortcoming. Our yard has numerous mud spots, a tree stump that has the history of a bee lodge, a bird feeder on one side and a birdhouse on the other (both of which, I'm pretty sure, have benefited squirrels and bees and other oddballs a whole lot more than...birds) which get in the way of everything from soccer balls to the dog's leash, and last but certainly not least....a very strategically placed garden. Right smack dab in the middle of the stinkin' yard!!! What smarty had the bright idea to put it there?! Honestly?! Do you know how many times I have tripped over the little wood logs surrounding that pile of weeds? Tons. So, needless to say, our yard is not really the selling point of our house. If it were then we would, quite plainly, be in deep trouble. However, we have decided to make a few attempts at some home improvement. We added a fire ring which, though not all that attractive, does facilitate the cooking of some pretty great s'mores. I (with a teeny tiny ounce of help from Jojo) built a little stone wall out in front of our porch last year...and, this year we planted some green stuff in the former patch of dirt that my little stone creation encloses. Exciting, right? And Jojo sometimes even has the brilliant idea to leave portions of the yard unmowed...you know, to add some diversity to the whole impeccably-groomed look that we are obviously going for...thank you for that, Josiah. Yeah, that's the caliber of thought behind this yard upkeep. But the latest improvement is in the front lawn (actually for the past couple of years it really has been more of a mud hole, but for lack of a better term, and since none of us really wants to call it a mud hole, it has still always been referred to as the "front lawn") located in front of the porch and that little stone wall I mentioned. For starters, we (more specifically, dad, with the aid of some large, sharp tool) took out that tree stump. Everything looks a whole lot better without that hunk of junk staring at you. And in it's place, and the surroundings, we planted grass! And it's actually growing! Hallelujah!!!