How I spent April Fools' Day

I was told by someone in the know "they'll come out easy." Uh huh. I give myself credit that whenever I took this person's name in vain once I was into the brutal job of digging up the wild roses that had overtaken one of the garden patches in my backyard, I never did it without affection and amusement. Sadly, I don't think I have any BEFORE shots, but trust me, you couldn't have walked between the tree and the sapling. This patch was filled with wild roses that sent canes out 10 feet to snag me and my clothes when I was mowing the lawn, and to whip me across the face if I wasn't watching carefully for the ambush. And I discovered when I was removing them that they also sent roots out just as far, which explained the mysterious appearance of new bushes everytime I turned my back.
On Saturday, April Fool that I am, I went out to dig these nasty things out, in preparation for making a lovely little garden where I can sit and read and sip coffee or iced tea. So far this fantasy of sitting and enjoying my back yard has been completely eclipsed by WORKING in the back yard, but I'm clinging desperately to the notion that the future holds such opportunities. Can't you picture a nice bench out there, or an old-fashioned garden swing? Maybe I'll put my bluebird house out there, too.
I worked about three hours on Saturday, and got about half of the job done. I left the bigger ones, thinking, based on the effort it took to remove the smaller ones, that I might have to leave them until I had some help (from a certain someone who said, "they'll come out easy.") On Sunday, with a bit more internal resistance to the idea of doing this work to be overcome, I tackled the remainder of the job. And finished it.

There's still much to be done. There are three more garden plots in the back that are seriously overgrown. One hides the outhouse so effectively during the summer that I was living here more than a week before I realized it was there. That's largely forsythia and grape and some lilac, but there's also some raspberry (more thorns!) and some more of those rosebushes that will have to come out. Another is primarily mature lilac and maybe won't require too much attention. The last will be fairly easy, as it's really just some underbrush and a stack of old wood.
Meanwhile, I haven't gotten back out front to finish the weeding, but the spring flowers continue to appear and surprise me. I can probably finish the weeding out there in an hour or so, and then it will be ready for some annuals and some mulch, and some more waiting to see what else comes up.
The lungwort has grown. I think Joe and I must have pulled a lot of this out last fall when we weeded along that side of the house. There had been a jungle of hostas over there, and a lot of weeds, and it was really hard to see what else we were pulling out with it. I hope this stuff will spread, because I really like it.

As you can see, I haven't weeded up by the front porch yet. As I drove around the corner on Sunday evening coming home from visiting my mother, a flash of red up there caught my eye. My first thought was that some garbage must have blown up there, so I went out to investigate and found, instead, a single red tulip, and some delicately pink hyacynthes had pushed their way up among the daffodils.
Who knew? I'm actually having fun, even though the hard ground and the spade had a few words with my knees and my ankles.









The blue hyacynthes are a much deeper purple than this photo allows. They're right along the front walk. I really like these, and will have to investigate what variety these are.









The daffodils, never my favorite flower, are just having way too much fun out there. Everywhere I look, there are more of them coming up, and those that are in the shade have not yet bloomed. They may yet win my affection, as they run through the whole range of yellow and orange and are nothing short of exuberant.