It been a few weeks since we took our first pics of the spring, and you can see that the entire look has changed, thanks to a couple timely runs to the green houses and also to Mom and her work with planting the bulbs.

We picked up a couple ornaments on our trip up north, one in Mackinaw and another at Past Tense in Lapeer. They are not in their final positions yet.

Anyway with Memorial day coming tomorrow I think we are all set as far as landscaping goes for the rest of 2022, or at least till Halloween. Continue reading “Late Spring Landscaping 2022” →

As the weather changes in the spring, different flowers pop up from the different bulbs that Mom plants, that way the look of the house changes as we go through the year. Usually we visit a few green houses in the spring to get the right hanging baskets to match the plants already in the ground.

Each spring we go through about 3 bags of mulch in the flower beds as mulch does degrade over time.

The first bulbs to come up in the spring are the tulips, and we have been asked by neighbors if they are real of fake flowers. Some of the tulips alongside the house were planted by James’ Grandma decades ago. Continue reading “Early Spring Landscape 2022” →

This year we finally decided to take the plunge and put on a new roof, it has been 20 years since the last one and this one is guaranteed for 50 years. One of the bonuses of the roof was that a trash bin would be in our driveway so we were able to do a little cleanup in the garage on some big items that would not normally fit in a trash can. Tittle Brothers put the roof on in one day which was very impressive.

This was really needed, we added this air filter to our furnace and ever since the dust ratio has gone down about 50 percent. It uses an ultraviolet filtration system as well so it should make the air we breathe healthier along with the less dust, but the reality is we ordered it because of all the dusting we were doing.

The only drawback is that when the windows are open and the AC or heat is not on, the dust comes back since the windows are not filtered.

Well the covid virus certainly delayed work on this as we had to live with the black top and a mound of dirt for a lawn for nearly 6 months. Upon doing the final work, they broke off a sprinkler head and the cement poured was not straight so we had to complain to DTE and they said someone would come out in about 3 weeks and redo the work so this event may not be over for us for some time. When they seeded the lawn they did try to repair the sprinkler head but they were unable to do so as they were not equipped to handle much more that seeds and dirt.

We will see what happens and hopefully DTE will make it right, remember we just got sod last year and had we known this was going to happen we never would have gotten it. Continue reading “DTE Finishing Up 2020” →

Mom took these pictures of the various types of flowers located throughout the yard and also inside the house. Mom has created quite a variety of flowers throughout the home and yard and it will be difficult for her to top it next year. These pictures were taken on a beautiful day in early August 2019 and it makes you remember just how precious summer months are. We hope that we will appreciate these pictures in the upcoming winter season, especially January and February. Mom works hard to make the yard look good and we don’t think it ever looked as good as it does this year, although we think that every year. Great job Mom.
Continue reading “Home & Garden Pictures 2019” →

James got a new pool for making the honor roll and graduating from a sophomore to the threshold of High School Junior. The pool was actually ordered online with free delivery (which saved much energy lugging it in and out of of the car). As usual we had to battle the level issue with the back yard, but eventually I think we got it right. We also used James’ metal detector to make sure the area was free of metal which could puncture the pool, then added two tarps to also help protect the bottom of the pool.

While the sod was being put in on Monday we received a call from the brick people saying they wanted to come by Tuesday to do the repairs on the porch and chimney. Once again we agreed but logistically it was difficult for several reasons. First, we told them about the new sod and how they have to be very careful not to walk on it. Second, Mom has a dentist appointment so Dad had to make arrangements to stay home from work since James is still not quite 100 percent from the wisdom teeth extraction on Friday, and third, we had a guy coming by to pick up a table he bought at our recent garage sale. The brick people said it would be no problem and were willing to move cars and trucks around to accommodate our busy schedule this day.

As it turned out everything went fine and we were able to get the porch and chimney repaired and up to snuff. We took our first picture of the sod with the porch repaired in the afternoon and it is shown in the gallery by clicking the link below.

Continue reading “Brick Repair On Porch and Chimney” →

Sunday night we received a call from the sod people saying they available to put the sod in the front lawn tomorrow if we wanted. Even though James was still not one hundred percent from his wisdom teeth being pulled on Friday, we agreed to have this done on Monday. The sod workers (and many other outside repair companies) were way behind due to the rain and we had been on a waiting list to have this done for about a month so we were glad to finally have it happen.

The sod when installed was a little longer than what we expected, this was due to the sod farms being unable to mow the sod because of all the rain. Hopefully the rainy weather will continue a little longer as it will help the sod take root, otherwise we have to water it 3 times a day.

Continue reading “New Sod Added To Front Lawn” →

Finally some decent weather and Mom was able to work on the yard a bit. Shown here are some pics from the work done and we think it looks fabulous. Ironically while posting these pics, Mom’s facebook showed what she posted a year ago and it was pictures of the yard from 2017. One of these plants actually grows strawberries and in one of the pics you can see that at least one of the strawberries is getting ready for picking. This should be a great season as we finally begin enjoying the spring weather. With Mothers day just ending we still had flowers inside which made for a great spring setting!

Continue reading “Spring 2018” →