Hell Weekend!

Inspiration eludes me this morning because I'm absolutely pooped from the weekend. We mistook this weekend for Labor Day, and now we're bone tired and sore. Fifty something-year old bodies are not meant to do hard physical labor.

When I was in college, fraternities had Hell Week where they put their pledges through hell. Cleaning at all hours of the night, making them do stupid and sometimes dangerous physical stunts, etc.... This evidently was our hell weekend!

A small project turned big and we spent Saturday and Sunday working in the yard. We've hated our front yard landscaping for awhile. I'm not sure when I got the wild hair, but I quickly decided on the exact replacement shrubs on Friday night and we headed to a local nursery and Home Depot early Saturday morning. All the other neighbors call a landscaper and have a crew do it, but saving that money was just too tempting? And I truly thought it'd just be a quick little Saturday morning project.

The feline cashier at the nursery needs some customer service training.

We planted three purple sages in the location where the natty weedy-looking British ruellia were half dead, a torchglow bougainvillea in place of the overgrown hibiscus that turns ugly and burns up every summer, and a desert willow in place of the ugly mound of rosemary and fungus blackened Katie ruellia. The planting wasn't the big deal. It was tearing the overgrown shrubs and tree out. A lot of the widely used tropical plants here in Arizona are just NOT suited for the climate. They die back during freezes in the winter, then shortly after they've made a decent recovery in the spring, they burn up in the extreme dry summer heat. I'm basically tired of the battle and looking at ugly, so we replaced them with plants that will hopefully look decent year round.

One problem of course always leads to another. In the process of digging out the old shrubs we managed to cut the wire to the landscaping lights and also puncture the irrigation tubing in numerous spots. Craig was still out there with a flashlight last night trying to stop the leaks until he can buy more tubing on his way home from work and do the repairs tonight.

After finishing the front yard landscaping Saturday, one thing called for another. We decided to spruce up the pots in the courtyard on Sunday. I turned a hose pot into a lantana planter, and potted a gardenia. And don't tell the Bumpuses, but we once again harvested an agave from their grow farm. This one had sprouted under an ugly desert spoon on the property line and was ripe for the plucking. Since they have weeds higher than their shrubs and their broken irrigation system continues to spout the Bellagio geyser every night at 7 p.m., I highly doubt they'll ever realize we've been kidnapping their baby agaves. In fact, I'm certain they have no clue their agave has ever given birth!

Pot of lantana. The aloe and agave are two of Craig's successful babies.

The yuccas and another baby agave graduated to bigger pots! These were all freebies. I'm amazed at how easy it is to propagate desert plants.

Can't wait for the new gardenia to bloom!

After finishing in the front courtyard, Craig was still inspired, so he disappeared into the backyard and repotted several cacti and ripped out a desert hibiscus that only looks good three months of the year. He's eyeing another red hibiscus that turns ugly every summer, so I'm sure it'll bite the dirt by next weekend. And my next plan is to plant some magenta flowering oleanders along the wall by our patio that will grow tall and hide our view of the Bumpuses.

Just when we were finally ready for a long nap, we discovered a tick in our bathroom. One tick too many! Oh my God! Our house must be infested! When Saby experienced the freedom of running wild, running free in the tall grass at the doggie dude ranch while we were on Isla, she unfortunately became a host for unwanted critters. (And yes, she had on Frontline!) Craig's been battling her infestation since July and thought he got them all, but not so. We found out from our vet that they no longer dip dogs anymore and Frontline is the answer. So off we ran to Petsmart for another round of chemicals. Craig treated Saby and I got busy spraying the carpets and upholstery in the house. I generally don't believe in spraying inside the house, but I also don't like the idea of ticks on my body, not to mention any diseases that might come from that! After fumigating Saby and the house, we relaxed in the pool to give the fumes a chance to die down.

So it's the Itchy and Scratchy Show now. Between the mosquito bites from being outdoors all weekend (mosquitos are absolutely mercenary in our neighborhood right now), Saby's ticks, and all the huge ugly spiders I saw while ripping out the shrubs, I've got a bad case of the creepie crawlies. Scratch scratch scratch!

I think all this newfound energy is a function of getting off some of the prescription drugs I'd been taking. Whatever it is, hopefully it'll last until I get a LOT of stuff done around here!