This Happy Little Life: Garden Love

I love Gardening. I love the feel of soft dirt in your hands, the fresh smell of seedlings sprouting out of the ground. I love the way the water sounds when it is running down a row of vegetables, the feel of a good effort tug to pull an onion out of the ground, and the crisp way perfectly ripe peppers pick off the bush. I love all of it. For about 10 minutes. And then the truth of gardening sets it.

The runny nose and itchy eyes. The swarms of black ants that seem to come out of no where and attack my toes. The itchy leaves of everything I plant and the painful callous on my hand after only having attempted to hoe one square foot of weeds with 20 more to go. The way it all of sudden got 20 degrees hotter in a matter of minutes once you step out into the garden and the way those blue mountains go almost instantly silver too.

I guess you could say, I love gardening in theory. I'll tell you what I love. I love wandering around my pretty yard with a water hose in one hand and a cold beer in the other, lazily watering the flowers that have managed to survive, no thanks to me. I love picking a few veggies here and there and then making one trip back into the house to wash them. I love arranging pretty rocks I've found into neat shapes and slowly creating my own rock path. I love painting random bits of junk and adding them into the flowers to make neat yard art. I love bottle trees and wind chimes. I love flowers that dangle out of pots and vines growing up fences. I love bird feeders and rusty trellises.

I think I am destined to have a gypsy garden and yard. Currently my papa has brought the yard back to life, and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful that he has finally caught a glimpse of my vision and is on board to help me dig up the old path and put down a new one, complete with a garden fence and unique gate.

So here a few pictures of our wonderful transformation over the past year. Hopefully with a little more elbow grease we can continue to build a beautiful backyard and I can start adding that gypsy touch!