Seeded & Mossified

We may have just created a new word.  Mossified.  That’s right.  On this absolutely divine day (somewhere in the 70s, which is a record high for March), we’re in the thick of yard work—namely, trying to grow grass.  As it turns out, this is quite a difficult task in Colorado, due to the minimal amount of rainfall and the arid climate.  It’s like the old adage, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”  (Quite a fitting phrase for this post, eh?)  I was just thinking of home sweet Indiana, where grass grows so quickly and ferociously in the spring and summer that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the mowing, which is the total opposite of what we deal with in the west.  And I would know, because growing up, my summer job consisted of mowing our entire yard (several acres), as well as the local cemetery, which happened to be adjacent to the house I grew up in.  You might be thinking that it’s creepy to grow up near a cemetery, but I adored it.  It boasted beautiful trees, some lovely rustic gravestones, and since it was a township cemetery, few people ever came there, so it was a peaceful place.  But my trip down memory lane is leading me off topic…

Last year we spent most of our time updating the inside of our home, but in the middle of it all, some of our awesome friends came over to help de-jungalize our yard, which looked like this.

After some serious pruning, trimming, and weeding, it perked right up!

Can you believe how many branches we hacked off of our blue spruce?  Thanks to a borrowed truck, we were able to haul them to a local place that mulches branches for free.

Our goal this summer is to tackle the lawn, along with painting the outside of our house.  Of course, I’m all giddy about my little pet projects, like painting the Adirondack chair we scored for dirt cheap during a winter sale, and maybe even giving our seen-better-days wicker chair a facelift.  I’m excited to add pops of color to the outside of our house and make it a true haven.  Is anyone else craving grilled shish-ka-bobs and burgers yet?

To prepare for warm weather, Matt raked up all the leftover leaves in our yard, and now he’s patching worn out areas with a mossy substance, along with grass seed and fertilizer.  Little did we know how expensive it can be to purchase one bag of grass seed—yow!  Our hope is that we can get our grass under control this summer, and then we won’t have to spend as much money maintaining it in the future.  We’re crossing our fingers!  Since we’re certainly new at the lawn care side of things, we’re open to any advice you might have, and since we bought our fixer-upper with no previous remodeling experience, we’re okay with the whole learn-as-you-go methodology.

Many people have told us that it will take several years for our yard to truly come into its own, so we’re trying not to get our hopes up too high, but at the same time, we’d like to shoot for accomplishing most of the following projects this summer:

1.        Simplifying our lawn.  The woman who lived here before us must have loved gardening, because she grew every plant known to man in a fairly small space.  Unfortunately, we’re not quite as devoted to lawn care as she must have been, so while we’d like the space to be beautiful, we just can’t imagine spending all of our waking hours weeding and maintaining the myriad of plants that sprout out of nearly every nook and cranny.  We hope to dig out some of the plants and replace them with low maintenance grass or rock.  In coming years, we’ll add bushes and flowers, but for now, we just need to purge.  I’ve heard it’s possible to give plants away for free on Craigslist, so we might go that route when we get there.

2.       Digging out stumps—can’t wait to get rid of those eyesores!

3.       Repairing the fence.  We’re not sure how long our fence will hold up, but for now, we plan to fill in gaps where we can and nail down loose pickets.

4.       Find a new light cover for our Narnia light post—can’t you just picture C.S. Lewis’ fawn, Mr. Tumnus, leaning against it?  I seriously wanted to yank this light post out of the ground last year, but one of my more practical friends said it might be nice to have an outside light when we’re hanging out in the backyard on balmy summer evenings.  If we can get rid of the witch hat top, I might be able to live with it.

5.       Repair or replace stoop railings.  This one may not happen this summer…

6.       Paint the outside of our house and detached garage.  We’d also like to replace the window trim with thicker pieces, and since some of the stucco needs to be repaired, we’ll probably try to do it all together.  As always, we’ll take into account where we’re at with our budget.

There are tons of other outside projects that I’m tempted to list, but it’s likely they will have to wait a few more years before they come to fruition.  Have I told you that patience is not my strong suit?  For now, let’s raise a glass to greener thumbs and St. Patty’s Day—cheers!