Spring Is Peeking

Since it is Spring Break here I have the grandkids during the day. Yesterday was not incredibly warm, but warm enough for us to go outside. I decided we would take the time and start on the backyard. What a hot mess. It seems like this whole house is a hot mess. The kids really like helping and love digging in the dirt so they had a blast. This is what we are working with.

It isn't a big yard but just the right size for us. But oh man do we have our work cut out. We met the neighbors and they seem to be very nice people. The woman  has lived there since 1961 so she knows a lot of the history of our house. There is a retaining wall back there that some of the former owners just gave up on taking care of. The people behind us brought dirt into their yard and made it start falling down. So someone just basically filled portions of it in and left it at that. She said it is a pretty stone. Her wall has tons of ivy growing on it and that has grown all into our yard and even up the side of our house. We definately need to get that taken care of. It is starting to come through that basement walls. But it would be nice to get it under control, it is very pretty. I would love to have it going up our side of the wall too. It has been quite a few years since someone has lived here and taken care of this house. But we kind of figured that one out on our own. There is also a fountain. It looks like it used to be beautiful. 

So let the digging begin. We are going to try to get the retaining wall exposed. Hopefully that will discourage the rot's from coming over here. See that house in the background, that is where they live.