Spring has Sprung

We arrived home from Nashville to see that Spring had sprung while we were away. Really sort of odd because certain plants (ie. the crocus) used to bloom first. That's all changed up now. A lot of the tulips (first photo)came up first.




The hyacinths I planted are no where to be found. (though they came up last year) Hmmm.

In light of the warmer weather the last couple days coupled with later daylight, my house related work has been yard clean-up. Our ivy is a bit brown, and has leaves throughout, so I've been trying to clean that out. (I like a neat and green front yard!)

The warmer weather has also sparked my "spring/summer/fall" warm weather to do list. I don't want to be beginning warm weather projects in September. Summer also is just overall challenging because we want to fit in enjoying the weather, increased social things (bbqs and the like-since beginning work in 2003, we now actively try to maintain our social lives too), general yard maintenance issues, along with projects.

As a sneak peak of what might be in store:

1. Renting the apartment. (a fair bit of nailbiting on this one. The tenants will live below us, and share some common areas. Our first tenants liked to watch loud movies at 2 a.m. underneath our bedroom in an unfurnished hardwood floored 11 foot ceiling room. We are really hoping to find some good tenants.)
2. Repainting front fence, and concrete repairs in the front of the house.
3. Hopefully adding some seasonal interest to the south side of the front yard. Right now, it's basically sedum, a rose bush, and bulbs. I'd really like something of interest there in the winter. It's a small spot, so finding something that won't take up the whole space is a bit of challenge.


4. Radiator work! (woohoo!) We have 2 more radiators to sandblast and paint, a radiator we might repipe so it's not sitting out so far, possibly adding in a couple new radiators where a contractor wrongly put in copper baseboards.
5. Finish garage work including (1) constructing new gate to alley (2) reinstalling windows that Glenn's Dad artfully restored (3) finish paint prep on the alley side (once they city wasn't going to tear down the garage I gave that up last year) (4) install gutters and a rain barrel (5) Paint the garage another coat. (I think we only did one coat of paint color).
6. Bird defense. Be more proactive about our bird defense.


Other general "possible" for the list include:
1. Painting back porch.
2. Finish front stairs.
3. Strip buffet outside main bedroom and paint. (would be nice to get all the lead paint out of our unit).
4. Miscellaneous carpentry in our unit. Baseboard, door molding, window sills. Some of this is easy, some of it is more of a mess and challenging.

We'll have to see how far we get on this. There's an endless supply of additional projects. I also haven't really discussed Glenn's wishlist of projects with him, so things may be added.