The Culprits

The other night MR.P and I got out the yard stuff and got to work.  While I was raking the pinestraw off MR.P was putting the Landscape Fabric Pro in place.  I was really excited that we were finally making some progress on our front yard!  Everything started out great. 

See how hard he is working!

The lawn fabric was easy to put in place.  MR.P did a great job of laying it down and securing it in place with rods.  Once he was finished with that section, he started putting the mini bark down. 

Smoothing the bark out...really, I was working, I promise.

Not long after that, bees (later to find out were hornets!) started to swarm the area!  He stayed calm and kept working to smooth out the bark.  Not long after, he was throwing down the rake, taking off his gloves, and running as fast as he could!  He got stung :( 

See the tiny red dot?  Yeah, Matt said it hurt WAY worse than a bee sting.  Stupid hornets.

I LOVE nursing him :)

(CTW is part of the company that Matt works for.  They believe that bringing the gospel to this world will change it!)

The poor thing!!  I felt terrible.  But, after some ice on the finger he was back to working hard. 

Not 10 min later he was running into the house, taking off his clothes!!!  Another hornet was on his back and others were swarming around him!!  Needless to say, our night of yard work progress was over.  I was pretty frustrated that these hornets were getting in our way. 

I love research, so I set out to find out how to get rid of these little culprits.  Everything I saw online said that if we didn't get rid of them soon, they could start building their hive IN OUR HOUSE!!!  So the next day I quickly found a company to come and take care of the hornets nest.  $150 later and the hornets nest is gone and we are able to do yard work again.  Don't think we aren't being super cautious though.  We will be watching out for hornets nests from now on.  The nest was the size of a football and a half.  It was HUGE.  I would have taken a picture if I wasn't afraid of being stung a million times.

So after a few more nights working on the front yart, MR.P and I finally had a break through with our work!  We can finally see some progress.  We broke our yard into a few different sections.  The first section is completely finished!  All day lillies dug up, all bushes trimmed, and bark put down.  It's clean, crisp, and simple.  Just like I like it!!

BEFORE

(This is the day we bought it...it was manicured, but it became over grown.  The day lillies were pretty, but only for 2 weeks.  They quickly became an eye soar.  I'll spare you the pictures.  Mainly because I never took one.)

This is just a few weeks ago when we replanted the bushes.  Then I decided I still needed more simplicity.

AFTER

See how we took the below section of day lillies out?

Looks TONS better!

Next on the list is the side of our yard.  There are a few more day lillies to pull up and then we'll put more bark down over there.  Shouldn't be too bad.  I am getting excited though.  It's starting to feel like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Anyway, I have been looking around at outdoor furniture because I am excited about getting some once the back yard is done.  I realized that the furniture I posted about before was not very comfortable.  I found this one today and I LOVE it!!!

I don't love the striped pillows.  So I would probably use this striped one instead.

I like the green and blue paired together. 

I'll probably change my mind at least another 100 times before we're done.  Our goal is to be done with the whole yard by September.  That's a whole month to get everything done.  Let's hope we can do it!