This story of absence is nothing short of well, interesting…

It all started when I requested that Papa and Mark work on the front flowerbed while they were visiting a couple of weeks ago.  They obliged…somewhat happily.  However, they didn’t have time to finish it completely because we were celebrating some special little princess’s two year birthday. 

The Before:  That pile of rocks is our altar.  We really need to get into the New Testament during family worship time!

Papa “working” hard!

The Helpers!  We chose this project because we knew that everyone could pitch in…and they did!

This is the side of the house that connects to the front bed.

So, that left the finishing touches to be completed by us the next weekend.

We got to work bright and early on Saturday morning.  Everyone really pitched in.  We saw a ton of lizards (yay, they eat mosquitos…the more lizards the happier I am…as long as they don’t come inside), frogs (they eat bugs too…stay on little frogs…outside), and a snake.

Trust me.  He’s in there.

Yeah, a snake.  Just lounging around in one of our azalea bushes in the front yard.  One of the azalea bushes in the azalea bed that we were clearing out and Mark was throwing lyme (lime?  whatever…the acid neutralizer stuff). Mark threw some lime and then jumped back a few feet.  We got out our handy dandy google and realized we weren’t dealing with a poisonous snake.  Just a little garter snake.  However, they eat lizards.  I like my lizards (outside), so I knew we were probably going to need to kill him.  But first, I wanted the kids to see him.

So, after several attempts, Mark was able to pin him down with the shovel while I picked him up.  Whether we were going to kill him or not was not questioned after that as we realized he was hurt in our jaunt to get him out of the bush, so after letting Ceili Rain touch him (the only one who wanted to), Mark took him off to the side of the house to give him his final resting place. (Sorry Jacie…but it was better than letting him suffer)

It just so happens the place Mark took him was where our cable line was buried.  Just so happens that cable line is the same cable line we use for internet and our landline phone service.  Just so happens that it’s not buried very deep.  And, as you can guess, it just so happens that when Mark sent the snake in to utter darkness, he sent our internet and phone in the same direction. And, we learned all of this on Monday when the cable repair guy came out and found the cut line.
 
Oh well!  He was super nice and did a quick great job fixing it up.  He greeted Mark at the door telling us he liked our bumper sticker (about abortion being wrong and such).  That was a nice visit!

And now you know why I did not post on Monday!

But hey, we got a nice cleaned up low maintenance flower bed…and I got my azalea bed cleaned out and mulched up.

A side view.  I’m going to add a couple of more plants to even it out but that won’t be until the big nursery near here has a warehouse sale and I can get them for dirt cheap…haha..dirt.  cheap.  I’m so funny.

Ahhh…what a little landscaping fabric and mulch can do for a yard!