From the Ground Up

As of late, our yard looks like this:

Pretty sexy, huh??  It's like one big veggie garden - except our whole front yard...


We spent the entire last weekend tilling and shoveling and raking to get it nice and smooth and dirty.  You see, we have planted grass seed for the past few years in our yard (remember this first post and this other post?).  Georgia summers aren't kind to, well, anything - especially grass that's new.  We ended up with a dead yard:

Not a pretty sight.  I'm all about finding ways to be greener, and I know grassy lawns aren't exactly the eco-friendliest option (what with the maintenance, pesticides, etc).  But when your house is small and long like ours is, we need a little grass to help us out.  Our curb appeal is non-existent.  Sod it is.

The prep work was brutal - I felt like an anatomy drawing afterwards - with key muscles clearly defined by bright pain each time I moved a certain way.  But it was worth it.  Luckily, when we got all of our ivy/trees taken out a few years ago, the fill dirt they brought in was from a lake shore - and thus quite fertile underneath our dead grass.  

The best thing about sod is the before and after only takes a day!  Not weeks of praying and finger crossing that seeds will sprout....

Check out all of those pines.  It's no wonder I freak out during storms....

Oh, and I did manage to plant this too last weekend- a nice dose of color.

Stay tuned for the after! 


ps - I know I just rambled about why we're saving money and how things are going to be tight -but part of the savings were for some key spring/summer projects - yard, deck, vacation.  So we aren't being frivolous, I promise!!