A Dream Come True

When we first saw our house, I fell in love with the setting. I didn't really pay a lot of attention to the house--just enough to consider it decent. I thought the location was so pretty and unique--even then in the middle of the winter. After all, you don't often find roosters, horses, and fresh farm produce stands across the street in Suburbia, Utah. Now that we've moved in, I really like the house, but we have been anxious for good weather to get out in the yard--it is the main reason we bought the house after all--an acre of weeds--a dream come true.

Let's just say we have lots of work to do. Fortunately, I have my grandma's genes and I really enjoy working in our yard. It's so satisfying. Here's what we've done so far:

We cut two strips of sod, or weed-filled crab grass, along the front walk and then rolled, shoveled, threw and got it out of there. Next we moved some big rocks that we dug up from another part of the yard, (that's a whole other post), shoveled on some top soil and finally planted a few shrubs. And just like that, we have some landscaping.

I spent several days over a period of a few weeks weeding this section to give it some shape and get it ready for a load of top soil. When (if) it grows up, it will be my flower garden. This is also a nice close up of our lawn--it goes on like that forever...

Our big cottonwood tree still waiting for the rest of the swing and the (working) drinking fountain. The boys thought this was the best thing about the house when we first saw it.

The backyard is uncharted territory. The sprinklers don't work in the back third or so of the yard (as far as we can tell) and so it's pretty much the kids' dirt pit. Who needs a fancy play-set, right? Although we dream of a pool, fire pit, baseball diamond, trampoline, barn with animals, etc. In reality, by the end of the summer it will just be dead grass and dirt. It's a blank canvas.

I took this picture because there were baby deer in our yard one day, but you can see a bit of our mountain and across the Jordan River view. We can also see the Oquirrh Mountain Temple from the deck--it's beautiful at night.

More baby deer and a before of the garden.

The garden. We cut all the sod and after more rolling, shoveling, throwing and hauling away (I really didn't love that part so much), Jeremy tilled it up. Today we put the raised beds in place and this weekend, we plant!

Home of our future orchard with the first little apple trees we planted.

After the garden is in, we'll be working on the big mess of dirt/dead sod and big rocks in the front yard plus the (now dead) weed patch (with more big rocks) in the other side yard. So there will be lots more yard pictures for years to come...but you really have to see it in person to appreciate the beauty that we fell in love with.