Labor Day, indeed.

Every now and then, between furniture re-arranging sessions and feeble attempts to de-clutter our clutter prone house, R and I will talk about stuff we could do 'out there'.

Of course, 'out there' refers to yardwork in excess of weed pulling and mowing. Last year we planted some monkey grass and a bunch of pansies. Most of which has, of course, died.  Sigh.

This year, we've been talking about more of an all-around overhaul. When housing maintenance came to 'fix' (and by 'fix' I mean paint over) the water damage in the corner of the kitchen, the maintenance worker suggested that we try using a drainage hose to divert water coming out of the downspout at that corner. R and I agreed that we would much rather bury the hose, even though to do it correctly would mean digging a trench from the back wall of our house to the fence. When he measured the distance, it was 28 feet. That's a pretty good amount of digging, but worth it to not have to deal with the drainage hose when we are actually using the back yard or when R is mowing the grass.

But hey, since we'd be digging, I suggested installing a drainage hose at the front of the house as well. I wanted to rearrange some of the landscaping in the front, and if we were going to be digging up and replanting bushes, we might as well fix the front drain as well. Then, perhaps, I could keep my mulch in the flower bed instead of it washing onto the sidewalk and entryway.

I have big dreams like that.

Today was amazingly pleasant. After almost a solid week of temps in the high 90's with high humidity, today the temperature wasn't expected to reach 80. My kind of weather!

We agreed this morning that today was the day. After we went to the Y, we dropped by Lowe's to pick up some edging for the tree in the front, the drainage hose, and some weed killer.

We get home and R immediately starts to dig in the backyard.  We haven't had a lot of rain here lately so the ground was really hard. About halfway through, we got smart and watered the area so that we would dig it up easier. While we waited for the water to soak in, we moved around to the front of the house.

There we moved a couple of bushes around, but mostly made a huge mess, helped along by our resident diva's free hand with the water hose. A preschooler + hose + lots of dirt = a huge, muddy mess. But hey, everyone was happy, and dirt can be cleaned off. R and I were being productive, S had our full attention all to herself, and T was getting a much needed break from little sister annoyance. Everybody wins!

After we finished the front, I went inside and R, God bless him, went around to the back and finished digging and burying the drainage hose with a little assistance from T.

Therefore, we totally deserved the Reeses' peanut butter pumpkins we had after dinner.

Happy Labor Day, everyone!