Working For The Weekend

Well now - the weather over the weekend is something a fella could get used to...

Had an interesting day Saturday. Started off with a quick trip to Lowe's for some top soil, a pre-fab fiberglass water feature, and some lawn food. Now, before you go rippin' on the water feature I have to tell ya that price was everything when it came to that particular purchase. See, back in 2005 The Better Half and I had some contractor types come out and give us some quotes on putting in our lawn (a job I wound up doing myself with the help of a Bobcat, 135 yards of top soil, and a couple of friends) and installing a water feature. The cheapest water feature quote we got came out to $7,000.00 so that was a no go. Fast forward 5 years - Lowe's had a very nice fiberglass rock pond/waterfall feature for $199.00 including the pump. Now, up close and laid out to bare the thing is very fake looking...that's where the top soil came in. What I did was use the top soil to bury parts of the water feature to make it more natural looking. I also planted quite a few shrubs and flowers around it, so from 5 yards out or so the water feature looks pretty darn good...and the total cost with tax and top soil came out to be $232.00....

The rest of Saturday afternoon was spent in quite despair. Due to the craptacular rain storms and mild temps, red thread FUNGUS has infected a good portion of the grass. Red thread makes lawns look more beaten down and worn out than Whitney Houston, therefore, it has to go. However, because I have kids that love to run around barefoot, I don't use hardcore chemicals on the lawn (aside from spraying the yard with 'Cutter' every 6 weeks to keep mosquitoes away...I'm sure the water feature will help with that...), that means fungicide is out of the question. So, I scoured the intertubes for natural lawn food and found this offering from Scotts. I have never used this particular fertilizer so I don't have past experience to go on. The brand I used to use is no longer carried by the big box stores or McClendon's in Sumner, so I had to change it up. Here's hoping the nitrogen is released fast enough to assist the grass in smothering the fungus, but not so fast it burns the lawn...

Saturday night was spent at the homestead of some new friends of ours. Actually, they are the parent's of Maddy's best friend from school, but we had never met them. I wound up chaperoning Maddy's zoo trip with her friend's dad (names being withheld because...uh...I'm not sure...I just don't feel comfortable giving their names without asking permission) and we hit it off pretty well. After a couple of awkward voice mail exchanges we were able to arrange a play date for Maddy's friend to come over...then another play date was arranged for Maddy and Jossy to go their house (Maddy's friend has a sister three months younger than Joss Joss). From there we got the invite for the whole family to head over for dinner. That was Saturday night and a fine time was had. It's nice to have 'neighborhood' friends that are our age and have similar likes/dislikes, back stories and life experiences.

That's pretty much all I have for now. Sorry for the boring tone of this, it's late, I have to be up 7 hours to start a new day....must get some sleep or I'll be psychotically tired in the morning...