Happy Birthday, Stanley!!!

Today is Stan's birthday and we made the most of it! Stan took a few vacation days so that he could stay home until next Monday morning. We had several landscaping projects that we needed to get to.

As far as we are concerned, we had a productive day today. Chris and Peter gave Stan some new power tools for Christmas. Given the fact that Stan has male chromosones, he has a great desire to operate them. LOL! First off, he cut down dead tree branches from our Red Bud Bush and some Elm Trees in our yard.

After that, he began major work on our front porch. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, a small pine tree was planted near our front porch. It has grown steadily since then and has become a gorgeous and very tall and round specimen. It is so close to our porch that it is actually pushing older people and young children away from where they need to be. Stan is now involved in building new steps further away from the tree. In our case, this is a huge job. Twelve years ago when we first purchased our home, we decided to build a large and very different porch than we had ever owned before. It consists of lots and lots of dirt and sand that we hauled in to be the base for everything else. Many railroad ties were set up to make several layers for our porch. The ties wound up being the steps. Soil was left uncovered on all layers except for the very top. We had this soil so that we could plant flowers, etc there.

I assume that if we are fortunate, we will have this project completed before Sunday. Of course, it is entirely possible that we won't finish it until later on. I'll keep you posted as we make progress.

When I am not helping Stan, I am working in our flower gardens--or should I say, what is left of them. The grubs have killed many of our gorgeous perennials that were such eye-catchers for so many years. We have been advised to plant our new plants now. Once they are in the ground, we will sprinkle grub poison on everything. If by chance, you are needing to get rid of any plants, please let me know.

We also need to do some major work around our pond area. We have decided to re-do our waterfall so that we can enjoy the sound more than we did last year. To have more "noise", we need to stack rocks higher than what they have been in the past. A few weeks ago, I asked for rocks on here. One person answered our call with a couple of stones. They will definitely be used in this project. Thank you, Dan!!! In the meantime, we will continue to be on the look out for more rock...

Well, as you can see, we plan on being VERY busy for the next several days. Drop on by! We'll put you to work also! LOL!!!

VLE-B