Ladybug

Today, as I was pulling weeds in the back yard, I happened to find a ladybug.

I quickly called the boy over so he could see before it flew away.

Needless to say, he was fascinated!

He let it crawl over him and he kept showing it stuff, like the trees and the freaky little airplanes that were flying overhead.

I was really shocked that it didn't fly away. I took it away and put it on my strawberry plants. It was a fun little bit of nature that he got to experience today.

You can kind of see the weeds in that last photo. Our back yard is 75% weeds, I think. I've been laying a beach towel in the grass and then pulling weeds while laying on it. Lazy? Perhaps, but I've been able to clear a large section without killing my back. One day, that lawn will be weed free!

I also got started on the first part of my backyard potager. There is a curb bordering the yard, and on one side we cleared out the gravel so that I can plant lettuce and herbs. Since I'm still coughing and having trouble doing any sort of physical activity for more than a few minutes at a time, my husband took pity on me and helped out. We even started to break up the ground to get it ready for compost!

While my husband took his shift, I started to plot out where things were going to go.

I used the Plan-a-Garden tool on the Better Homes and Gardens website. It only has flowers and trees, which is kind of lame, but I resized some things and I'm pretending they're what I'm planting. I want to put a row of sunflowers along the wall to provide a buffer between it and the plants. It gets really hot here and those cinder blocks retain heat like crazy! Also, they're tall and pretty and will look nicer than that plain, cinder block wall.

As you can probably guess, I don't cook with a lot of fresh herbs. The ones I use the most are the ones I'm planting. I figure if I want to grow other ones I'll put them in pots like I did with the lavender Bubba and I planted earlier this week.

The gray ovals are stepping stones. There is a stack of small pieces of flagstone behind the AC unit on the side of the house which will look really nice in there and provide accessibility to the plants in the middle and the back.

I'm so loving having a back yard!