Yep, that was me yesterday - digging and digging and digging and digging. I started with the hardest thing to do and finished with the easier things to do. I went out at 10 am, came in for a 20 minute break at noon. Then took an hour break from 2:30 to 3:30 (getting another tool and one more Hosta from Home Depot and picking my son up from school). Then he and I together planted the annuals in the pots - all 20 of them and then finally, we picked up all the empty pots and thoroughly watered everything. Did you ever realize that kids love to play with water?
I planted first the River birch. I have this patch in my yard that is all ground cover with a big ole tree stump in the middle of it. I 'thought' that tree had been cut down awhile ago and I was 'hoping' I could dig up a big enough hole near the base of the stump (but not too close as to hinder that tree's growth). And, I got lucky. I hit a decent sized patch that was not riddled with big roots and when I did hit some roots while widening it up, they were a bit spongy and easy enough to hack away. However, I spent about an hour on getting that tree planted.
Then I moved onto the big flower bed. This flower bed is huge. It runs along the side of the property - hits three other lots and is an irregular shaped trapezoid. Top is 30 feet, sides are 20 feet on one end and 12 feet on the other and the front section is 46 feet long. So it's big. In the back section, there's an old, huge, rhododendron, some common bush and then 4-5 medium sized azaleas. There's NOTHING in the entire mid to front section of the flower bed, just empty, barely there mulch and big pieces of timber marking it off. So, I put in 33 plants yesterday. In there I started with the bigger pots (meaning needing to make bigger holes) and moved on down in size. I still need to plant the 30 small bulbs and two other plants I decided last evening to move to there instead of the front yard. I planted hostas around the tree in the back yard- again, got lucky with roots. and then, as I said, we planted in the pots. The pots I'm scattering around the yard for bursts of color among the perennials. Some in the rock flower garden in back. Some by the new tree on the stump. A bunch in that huge flower bed, and a few in that front yard flower bed.
Kid love playing in the dirt too. My six year old had Cars work gloves, Cars hand spade and Cars hand rake. He kept filling the pots, I would place the annuals, and together we would fill in around. That took about 1.5 hours for about 20 pots. And then the watering - took time too as it's a lot of new plants. Oh, and I transplanted an out of place azalea from the back yard to the front yard and added a new small azalea in the front yard too.
But, I'm not done. I was out there for 7 hours yesterday and burned about 3300 calories (then came in and made dinner - man was I exhausted). I still need to put all the tomatoes and herbs in their big containers and build the two islands in the yard, plant there, and then mulch everything. I figure I need two more full days at least. But, I love it while the weather is this perfect - 65-75, light breeze and no humidity? Lovely. I will finally have a yard I can be proud of - now if only I can keep it up when the heat and humidity sets in!
And with all that hard work, I did surpass the halfway point for this weight loss journey. At least I 'think' it's my halfway mark. That end weight is pretty flexible. I weighed 179 at the end of high school. I'll see when I get closer to that goal if I want to go more or stop. It's all about how easy it is to maintain that weight. If' it means I have to exercise 3 hours a day and eat 1000 calories to be 175, then, I won't stay that low. Conversely, if I hit 175 and the weight is still coming off with moderate effort, then I'll see where to takes me to a comfortable weight to maintain. But, for now, I'm just a hair over halfway done and it feels great and the weight is still coming off with what I'm doing.
Beginning weight: 255.6 Now: 215.0 (lost 40 and a half pounds)
Exercise total hours in 2011: 130 hours
Walk/Biking/Running total miles in 2011: 383/1000
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