Rosemary and Rocking Chairs

We moved to this, our first house in November of 2010. We love the neighborhood and though the house is still half empty we’re feeling more settled than we ever have. However, we’ve not been kind to our yard. Last summer was insanely hot. And I was enormously pregnant with Little Zoom, meaning I had no interest whatsoever in being outside doing yard work. I’m quite certain we killed about 45% of the brand new sod that was laid when our house was built. We had no clue how to mow properly, water adequately, or fertilize effectively. By August there were brown balding patches covering most of our totally unshaded backyard. Whoops!

Several weeks ago, I broke down and hired a lawn care service (not a lawn mowing service; bummer). They claimed they’d fertilize to make the yard green again, and they’ll continue to come back and spray throughout the year to keep it healthy. All we have to do is water and mow which we’ve started in earnest with the warm weather quickly approaching. A few weeks ago we laid our pine straw. I must say, our yard is looking much less sad than it did a month ago.

Last weekend, we decided to work on the porch. We scrubbed and scrubbed the yellow pollen off the railings and rocking chairs, bought our ferns, and I planted this little herb garden to sit next to the front door.

My garden consists of a strange mix this season. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with lemon verbana, other than smell its leaves every time I go outside.

One of our favorite things about living down here are the summertime thunderstorms. Though they haven’t quite arrived yet, we’re anticipating them eagerly. Most evenings you’ll find us sitting on the front porch in our rocking chairs watching the storms come in.

Yes, we’re 30 going on 70, and we love it.