Finally, a backyard I want to hang out in!  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

It’s amazing what a difference a little grass and a few plants makes!  This afternoon I put down soaker hose in the garden beds, and tonight I’m going to get some microdrip irrigation line to run in the back veggie garden.  We’re going to do the front yard as well, but I want to wait for the “rainy season” to get started before planting any more sod.  Now, time to get off the computer and enjoy the yard!

We have rain barrels!  Just in time for the new and improved extra strict watering restrictions.  I bought recycled pepper barrels on craigslist (and was not-so-pleasantly surprised to find they still had pepper juice inside – THAT smelled great), cleaned them out, and today I put in spigots and screens on top.  A little downspout renovation and here you go:

Now all we need is a little rain to test them out!

There has also been raised-garden-bed building, and dirt hauling, and vegetable planting:

It’s a little late in the season here, but I planted beans (pole and bush), lettuce, spinach, and zucchini.  The squirrels ate the zucchini seeds in about 2.3 seconds, so I started peppers inside and I’ll transplant those in a week or two.  The two square planters are tomatoes that I started about a month ago – I’m excited about how big they are, but I’m still not sure I believe they’ll actually produce tomatoes.  I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Other than that, not much going on…school, work, school, work, sleep occasionally, and repeat.  The semester is almost over though, so woohoo!  Only…three more to go.  Still no wedding plans, but hopefully something soon.