And it rained some more . . . actually a lot more. We got 3.5 inches yesterday and most of that was between 4PM and 9PM.  We had tornado warnings and lots and lots of rain.

This is a shot from back in November so you can see how the gulley out behind my house USUALLY looks.  See, not a drop of water.

This is what the gulley looked like around 6PM last night. It actually got a little bit worse than this, but I didn't want to go out in the heavy rain to take another picture.

And below is what it looked like this morning when I went out to inspect the back yard and the gulley.

I think now I can appreciate that steep embankment and that gulley a lot more. I'd hate to think what that would have done to our houses and back yards had the gulley NOT been there.

Well it DID rain here. It rained over night, it rained all morning, all afternoon and then in the late afternoon hours it started raining really hard and then we had a tornado alert. The tornado sirens were actually blaring; it was kind of scarey. There is more water in the gulley behind my house than I've ever seen before . . . but then I've only lived in this house since December so that's not too long of a history. At any rate, my yard is happy Happy HAPPY.  I'm sooooo glad we got that sod laid yesterday, because if we hadn't all that recently bulldozed dirt would have been eroded away into the gulley.

Changing the subject . . . I almost burned down my house today.  Or at least I could have. I made bread  and when it was time to take the loaves out of the oven, only one tray was sufficiently browned, so I meant to turn the oven off leaving the unbrowned loaves in the oven to finish baking, but OOPS!!  I hit the "Self Clean" button instead of the Clear/Off button. Oh my goodness, what was I going to do? I hit the Clear/Off  button, but it was too late. The door was already locked. With that much heat the bread in the oven would surely catch fire, and THEN what?  I was about to flip the breaker to stop the cleaning process, but my neighbor suggested that I wait for 3 or 4 minutes to give the oven a chance to cool down from the self clean automatic settings. She said that she did that once and although the door wouldn't open until it cooled down, the Clear button I'd pressed had actually canceled the self cleaning process.  Sure enough, in 4 minutes I was able to open the door and get the bread out.  AND it was pretty good.  I can't begin to tell you how nervous I was for that 4 minutes.

This was the big happening today around my yard. They applied the sod to the slope behind my back fence. It ought to turn green as soon as it gets rained on tonight. . . . I hope, I hope, I hope it rains tonight. The patch of dirt you see between the fence and the sod will be more flower beds.

Then while they were laying that sod, this is what Alice and I started working on. It's the north side of the house and we've added a sidewalk.  This is the side of the house where the outside door to the garage is located and also the air conditioner.  It's not visible from the patio and not even visible from most of the back yard. That's where I'll keep my Rubbermade tool shed and I'll plant hostas between the sidewalk and the house, because that side of the house doesn't get much sun.

This marks a milestone. . . the very first bouquet of flowers I've picked from my flower beds at my new house. I really didn't think it would be this soon, but I'm delighted it was. I had the ladies over today for our monthly game of Hand and Foot and picked these to decorate the snacks table.

No, don't get excited. This is NOT growing in my yard already. When I was driving over to mom's to do her grocery shopping for her I passed this fence and just had to stop and get a picture. I just love the way wisteria looks when it's blooming, but the problem is it's beautiful only about 2 weeks and then it's not good looking at all.  But my oh my, what a show it puts on while it is blooming.

Here's a close up of the clusters.

The daffodils have decided to show themselves in pretty convincing numbers out in front of the house. Yesterday I had about 13 daffs and today I have 70 blooming.  That means only 182 more bulbs to bloom.

And to my amazement I already have Home Run roses and Double Knock Out roses blooming out back. You can click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger version.

Here's another one of the double daffodils that are blooming in my front yard right now. Yesterday's was a peach one and this is a bright yellow and white one.

Alice and I went to Home Depot today and I bought a bunch of paver stones for the side walk on the north side of my house. It will only be used when I need to get into the side door of the garage. I'll plant hostas on that side of the house because it will get very little sun.  We couldn't do any of the work on that side walk today, because the ground is still too wet from our rains over the past two nights.

Sod will be delivered Monday (if it's not raining) to be laid over the dirt that has been leveled off behind my back fence.

This is just ONE of the 252 bulbs that Alice and I planted in my front flower beds back in December. It's called a double daffodil, and since they were just planted this past winter they were a little bit behind Alice's daffodils.  But I think they were worth the wait.

And here is a peek at how some of the other plants in my yard are fairing.  The front of my house is now starting to look a little bit like a daffodil farm. The other three thumbnails are of plants in my back yard. The yellow rose is a mini rose bush and of course the tree is the crab apple tree and the plant on the far right is Quince.  Can you tell I like color?

This picket fence is Alice's fence, and three houses away you can see the earth movers out behind my fence. You may have recalled that I had a huge pile of dirt out behind my house and I had been waiting until the fence got built to have them rearrange that dirt so that it makes the slope down to the gulley not so steep.

Here's what that pile of dirt looked like before the fence went up.  It's between 2 feet and 3 feet high the entire 65 feet across the back of my lot and I have been most anxious to have it flattened out.

I hired this father and son team to do the job. They had done some of the original grading of my land and they also did the grading for the house that's going up just next door to my place, but for this job I had to wait for them to be on this side of town again and TODAY WAS THE DAY.

I had them make the first 4 feet level and then gradually slope to the gulley.  This is going to be so much nicer for me when I'm working in the small 2 foot wide flower beds I plan all along the back of my fence.   It means a lot more work getting those beds ready, but it will sure be worth it when it's done.

Oh, I do love spring. As you can see the crab apple tree is opening up a little bit more. I'm really beginning to feel like I actually have a yard and not just a big square lot of dirt. 

The thumbnails are of the Tulips and daffodils that are peeking out of the mulch and the moneywart that I bought today to put on the south side of the house on the little strip of dirt beside the sidewalk that won't get very much sun and that I definately don't want the dirt to wash away every time we have a good rain. Moneywart puts down nice roots that will hold the dirt in place. And the last thumbnail is another shot of the crab apple tree.