The Patio

First off, I apologize to everyone that I complained about the patio project to. I'm sure you're all delighted to hear that it's finally done! I'm actually pretty impressed, considering we did at least 90% of the work at night during the work week.

It turned out as an awesome little spot to hang out. Just enough room for a table for four, our grill, and the firepit. The overall look mimics the xeriscaping in our front yard, with the combination of mulch, river stones, and clumps of grass. We put in a semi-dwarf peach tree, a butterfly bush, and a couple of quasi-native low-water plants futher into the backyard. Next spring, I'm going to put in some raised vegetable beds in the area that is now mulch, since we get plenty of sunshine and I really want to grow veggies and herbs.

In the end, I'm really glad we did it all ourselves. I know I wouldn't have the same appreciation for it if we had just hired someone to build it for us, plus my idea of what I wanted kept changing throughout the project, so I got to have more control over it this way.

Here's what it looked like before, by the way....

Salad with avocado dressing

One of my favorite things about working at home is being able to make fun, creative, lunches.  I don't do well with repetitive lunches, and I get burned out on sandwiches or yogurt after about six months, so I don't like having to pack a lunch.

Today's lunch was a boston lettuce salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, mushrooms, blue cheese, and creamy avocado dressing.  The blue cheese was a little overpowering, but I bought some good stuff and I'm trying to make sure I use it up before it goes bad.  Oh, and a piece of bread, since I can't have just a salad for lunch or I'll be munchy all afternoon.

The dressing is homemade off a recipe I found online.  An avocado (I've been buying a lot of them since they're in season), plain yogurt, garlic, onion, dill, lemon juice, and a little cayenne pepper.

And now, back to work.

Deer Creek Canyon

I hiked today, with Christine and Stefano.  It was pretty awesome, even though we were exhausted and didn't hike as far as we wanted to.  Too much walking around downtown to and from the baseball game yesterday.

The hike started just past the hogbacks-- a line of sedimentary rock which was uplifted by the second round of mountain-forming action.  It made for some spectacular views of downtown over red sandstone, with the real rocky mountain foothills behind us.

And here's our lovely view of downtown.  It was a pretty awesome hike.  I've been hiking at this park twice now... If I keep GPS tracking my hikes, eventually I'll have everything at this park.

View Deer Creek Canyon Hike 2 in a larger map

Apparently it's called bindweed

We have weeds in our lawn.  I'd love to get rid of our lawn, since I hate having to water it, weed it, mow it, etc.  But we'll probably get a dog some day, and dogs like grass.  Plus I grew up in more temperate climates, and I just wouldn't feel like a homeowner if I didn't have grass.

It's not a great lawn anyway...  It was put in as sod a year ago before we bought the house, and I'm pretty sure that certain areas have sand under them to fill in low spots instead of dirt.  Plus there was one area where they just put sod directly over a slab of concrete.  High quality landscaping, eh?

I had been calling these morning glories, since they have little morning glory-like blooms, but apparently it's a nasty weed called bindweed (my mother informed me when she visited; she also helpfully identified all the other plants in my yard that I didn't know what were).

These frustrate the heck out of me.  I can deal with dandelions and other weeds, since I can usually pull those up by the root.  But the stems on the bindweed are so weak, that all I can do is rip off the top leafy part.  And of course it's back a few days later.  Sigh.

And despite the fact that they drive me nuts, I'm encouraging them anyway.  Where they're growing in the mulch, I put up a trellis and I'm trying to get it to climb up.  I even watered them yesterday.  I'm such a softie for any plants.  Especially anything that blooms.