Outdoor plans

This year is a "work outside" year.  We have big plans for the back yard that I'm very excited about.  First, we're taking a year off of gardening.  We still have some rhubarb, and Caleb brought home a cucumber plant from school that we'll plant, but besides that, we're taking a furlough.  And we're moving the garden.  We've already pulled out the fence, so the next steps are removing the frame, moving dirt, and planting grass.  We'll also remove the raised "walkway" from the deck to the back yard.  And we're going to cut down the pine tree that is right next to the deck.  In the end, my flower garden will be extended, and we'll have a nice wide step directly from the deck to the yard.  I think it will look so nice!   I'm hoping to build a small raised garden next to the fence along the driveway.  Since we cut down the crabapple last fall, that area gets plenty of sun.  And that's where the rhubarb currently is, struggling to grow in our clayey soil.

On the driveway side of the house, we plan to clear out the area that currently has lava rock and "decorative rock".  We don't really think it's so decorative.  In fact, I may work on that today.  Ultimately, I'd like to just mulch around the trees that are there.  And maybe transplant some hostas there in the fall. 

And finally, we need to paint the shutters.  Last year my brother came down for a few days and painted the storage sheds and our exterior trim.  But the shutters were lower on the painting priority list and didn't get done.  And boy, do they need painting.  So I have spent this morning scraping.  We have 8 shutters, and I have now scraped the bottom 2/3 of each one.  Anelise wasn't too happy out there though, so I'll hopefully get the scraping finished during her nap.  I've also called a friend who has a pressure washer, to see if we could borrow it for the day; I'm waiting for a return call. 

Jonathan has tomorrow off, so we'll see how many of our tasks might get completed!