Because I don't have instagram...

I've been working very hard in the backyard. These are some of the 'in progress' shots. I will do a final fancy picture blog of the finished and growing products sometime next week (or whenever!) but I did want to share a few pretty things and also some video. All of this is from my phone which means, yes, I'm glad to to have upgraded from my old faithful Blackberry. Hello, world, I've finally arrived in the 21st Century!

The above video is from May 12th when we went to the SCC campus for the Garden Expo - I sent the video to my friend who 'loves' garden gnomes.

Not my tree - this belongs to the person at the end of the street near my bus stop, but it's the same kind of tree in my backyard and I used this picture to help me identify it later as a Paul's Scarlet Hawthorne

Hannah's Japanese Maple - we were hoping for more red but Seiren is turning out to be a very vibrant little boy and we're excited to watch him grow!

Hannah made this shabby-chic herb wall!

The herb wall is up against the house overlooking our two veg patches. Well... one of those veg patches is actually a strawberry patch, as seen above.

I felt silly talking to no one - but I'm trying to get comfy doing small 'vlog' type video. My friend Dani did some awesome vlogs a couple of Octobers ago and I really loved getting to see her and hear her as she talked about things in her life. 

This is Django! He is one of the resident store kitties at the Northwest Seed and Pet on division. He did an excellent job holding down those pesky soft pots.

Our strawberry patch is starting to produce! And they taste wonderful <3

My favorite pair - lavender and sage - the lavender plants are from the Garden Expo and the large sage plant is one that I planted myself from seed about two years ago.

This is Scarlet, our enormous Paul's Scarlet Hawthorne. This picture hardly does her justice.

Here we have Sigurd (right) and Yukiko (left). Sigurd is the tree that was at our wedding and represented laying down roots to our new life. It's a Dwarf Norwegian Evergreen. Yukiko is a Japanese Snowbell tree that I got free from the Arbor Day Foundation as part of a community outreach program.

A close up of some lovely sage buds.

This azalea plant was here when we moved in. There are two of these in the front yard under the pine trees. We've since added two more azaleas and a coral bell to enhance our curbside appeal.

Miss Kim Lilacs in soft pots. They are done flowering for the season but they smelled so good! Also please note the lovely brace we've had to put up against the fence to keep it from leaning into our yard. Aint being a homeowner fun?!