The Backyard and Agility Equipment

So it's been a while since I showed you anything we've been doing outside.

I thought you could better appreciate why it's taken us so long to whip it into shape out there if I showed you what the previous owners left us with.

Bring on the before and after!!

Before..this was taken a day or two after we closed on the house. As you can tell, they did nothing that entire spring. We bought the house in March, but didn't close on it until May. There are actually 3 stumps there..under the weeds.

After. There are no stumps. And no weeds. Jonathan built a wonderful cover for our basement window wells...to keep out the leaves, and critters. You can sort of see in the before picture that it was mostly mud in front of the bed, and moss had sort of taken over there...but we took a little effort and planted some grass...and it's taking off as you can see.

Before. This makes me cry! This is a hodgepodge of trashy rock, and that is blue rug juniper planted on top of that dirt pile...yes, it's dead. That pile of rock and dirt the previous people were trying to pass as landscaping goes all the way around the back stoop.

After! Oh my God I can't believe how much better this is! We just finished this today. It's been a terribly long process. My sister and I pulled out all the dead weeds and plant life last fall. This spring Jonathan loaded up all the rock and dirt (2 truck loads full!) and got rid of it. We leveled it off and edged it in. Today we put down the pebbles. We're not done yet, but we could leave it just the way it is and no one would complain. We want to put in a water fountain and some semi-large boulders, and maybe a gazing ball or something.

And don't worry, we're going to put something over the stoop to make it pretty, probably a retaining wall sort of deal...but it's just such an improvement I couldn't wait to share.

We've been busy on the agility front as well. We just finished the A-frame today. Jonathan built it perfectly!

We've started our Weaves class, here's our weave poles. Oliver is pretty good at doing it with a treat lead, he hasn't quite got the concept of doing it on his own..but we'll get there in no time.

I've got a few things in the wings, a birthday card, well actually 2 of them, and I'm kicking up Halloween card production, so stick around there's a lot more going on.

Jessica