Well, all my griping must have payed off because the sun finally came out yesterday.   It was beautiful.  Beautiful!

Doesn’t even look like the same place, does it?  Of course, as soon as we rubbed the sleep from our eyes we immediately put on our shoes and headed out doors.  Artie lead the way.  He hates rain almost as much as we do.  The idea of lolling about on dry sunny grass was right up his alley!

Since this has been the first time I’ve ventured forth into our backyard since, oh, September, I decided to take stock of the general situation.  It wasn’t very good.  Lets just say the weeds were taller than I was.  Here’s a picture of my garden plot.  You won’t see much garden though.  It was totally over run with spiky prickly weeds.  Ick-o.

I’m going to use this as my “before” shot so I can look back at how far I’ve come once the garden gets planted properly!  But don’t worry, all was not lost.   I found my clematis just starting to bloom…

My rose garden is full of promising buds….

I found an early bloomer and named her Firebrand.  (For obvious reasons!)

Most surprising were the wild roses that grow along the back gate.  They have to fight for every gleam of sunshine but they seemed to be winning the battle with such grace.

Lovely, no?

The girls were exploring as well.  Leina’s favorite past time is to collect flower bouquets.  First, she picks…

Then she sniffs…..

And if the flowers meet her exacting standards, they are included and eventually given…

Kulia and Artie, however, decided to rest in the grass.  Artie found his ginormous cow bone and Kulia decided to keep him company while he gnawed the afternoon away.

It was a simply wonderful spring day.  (Except for the weeds.  Grrr.)  The forecasts predict the clouds will roll back in soon but for now, we’re just thankful for the little bit of spring weather and a chance to enjoy the green.