Julie’s Backyard Wildlife and Gardening Blogging Continues…

It is Always a Thrill to see a Racoon in our Backyard

(One time I saw one peeking in our Kitchen Nook window. He was watching me while I was lollygagging around the kitchen. He was adorable. But, when he realized I had spotted him he scampered away. Sad, I would have loved to greet him at the window.)

When you live in a warm year-round climate like we do, outside gardening ends up becoming a part of your life, whether you originally seek it out or not. In some cases the lifestyle will just evolve as you live the Florida life. It was always in us to garden, but it has grown in scale as the years have progressed.

Also, a nostalgic history will play into your gardening as well.

For example, we have a few Plumeria Tree plants in our backyard because we had a beautiful Plumeria Tree in our backyard in Hawaii that our children and their friends would play in and climb.

Our Backyard Plumeria

We have also expanded our gardening through the years and we have learned as we go.

Growing our herbs, peppers, flowers, and banana and orange trees, our knowledge has increased and even a daring in us to learn and grown more.

Experience will make you a better gardener. But, don’t let that stop you from starting a garden of your own. I have always been a ‘learn as I go’ kind of person. That is how I learn. It is how I have always learned. So, don’t let a lack of knowledge or experience stop you.

Expect some garden “casualties” as you go. Whether they be by your own hands, or natures. Don’t view the “casualties” as failures. View them as learning experiences.

I see nature as being very kind to us amateur’s.

They always seem to give us a second chance, and they never complain about it. I will bring to you my further gardening accomplishments and hope that they will inspire you.

Gardening is very rewarding. To plant something, nurture it, and bring it to maturity, is very satisfying.

Happy Gardening!

Julie

(SCROLL DOWN FOR NEW BLOG ENTRIES)

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(Not to worry, I do have two legs. I’m just usually sitting on one of them.)

This is my view of my backyard. I position my desk in this way, facing my backyard, and NOT the T.V. that you see in back of me.

I get to see when visitors arrive. Here is an Osprey, or Sea Hawk as they are referred. Look how beautiful he is! My camera is always within reach to capture these majestic moments in my life. They bring me such joy!

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Our Banana Tree

Another nostalgic plant we have in our backyard. We always had the best producing banana tree in our backyard in Honolulu.

Not to mention the delicious bananas it would produce. Here we are trying to reproduce that banana tree and it’s tasty memories it gave us.

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Our very tacky garden bench where many a pot is stored, and many a plant emerges.

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Our Sweet Sparky

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Our Backyard Lizards

Of course, we have a TON of them! But, we don’t bother them. We keep our distance and leave them alone. Do this for about a year and then start to approach them. I can sit beside one and the lizard doesn’t flee because it knows I won’t hurt it. Pretty soon, I should be able to place my hand beside one and it will jump onto it. As we see it, our backyard does not belong just to us, it belongs to all life we have in our backyard. I just want us all to get along and be neighborly. I think that they do too. They are just so used to being chased and abused. Treat them with respect and they will love you. 🙂

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My Great-Grandmother Keith’s Majolica Pot

I am pretty devastated by this. Know that most of the time when something breaks in our home, I am o.k. with it. As I see it, it can be replaced so I don’t worry about it. BUT, this cannot be replaced! This belonged to my Great-Grandmother Keith. I have looked at it throughout my life. I am not interested in any monetary value that it probably had. To me this is very sentimental. It was hers. She bought it, she planted lovely things in it. She passed it to my Grandmother, who then passed it to me. It has a history. There are memories attached to this beautiful old pot.

Gordon has assured me that he can glue it back. It won’t be the same, but it will still exist. That makes me feel better. I need for it to still exist.

The reason that it broke to begin with is because we hired some tree trimmers and they accidentally broke it while they were working. I don’t blame them at all. They are tree trimmers and they cannot control where some of those limbs land. I blame us because we didn’t put it away like we should have. Let this be a lesson to all of us!

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DIRT CUPS

Blast From The Past (2013)

I came across these photos the other day and I wanted to repost them. I had originally posted them in 2013 in our very first webstite format. When we revamped our site in 2015 some things got lost. Then, when we revamped it in 2019 even more things got lost. I knew that these cute dessert cups would be appreciated so I wanted to repost them and the recipe for them.

Drying Some Herbs and Berries

This Recipe Calls For:

Oreos

Chocolate Pudding

Cool-Whip

Herbs

Gummy Worms

Artificial Flowers

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You first make the Chocolate Pudding according to the package directions.

You Then Add the Cool-Whip to the Pudding, then adding some of the Crushed Oreos

I Placed Some Crushed Oreo’s into the Bottom of Some Clear Cups

Next, you add the Pudding/Cool-Whip Mixture to the Cups

Now Add a Sprinkling of Oreo (Dirt), and some Gummy Worms and Mint Leaves

(You want to keep them refrigerated.)

Oh, Happy Spring!

NOTE: I just spotted my above Dirt Cups on my first gardening blog post. Good to know that I didn’t lose it! But, I think I will keep this one here as well seeing as how it is just so cute. 🙂

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Backyard Bubbles

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BLOG ENTRIES START HERE

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UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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June 10, 2023

A Bird’s Nest in our Backyard

Interestingly enough, this is really just an old topiary bush. Very low to the ground.

I hope this lovely nest with it’s two eggs will be o.k. The mother is so beautiful! I hope they all make it safe.

Housing The Bird Nest

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Save The Old Rotten Lettuce

Every summer our frogs lay their eggs in our fountains and bird baths. I know that I have written about this many times in the past but, I enjoy writing about it for those that may not know. Frogs are important to our eco-system. They eat the bugs in our very Florida swampy backyard. That keeps the bug population down. I also love how they sing at night. When they are singing then I know everything is safe. When they stop singing, well, that means a predator is in my yard. Whether man or beast.

Here are just a few places where the frogs have laid with eggs and we have tadpoles to feed.

This particular fountain gets full sun. Used to that was no problem for them. But, now that things are hotter the tadpoles are dying in this hot boiling water. So, I started placing some palm leaves over them to keep them cooler and protect them from this hot sun. I also feed them some of our rotten lettuce to eat.

Draped With Large Leaves

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Our Key Lime Tree

We have had this Key Lime Tree since 2005. We brought it with us when we bought this house in 2006. So far we have had to relocate it in our backyard a few times, but it is coming back to it’s once grand self.

The blossoms are everywhere!

The bees pollinating it are everywhere! So excited for this next crop!

It may look small but I believe it is mighty!

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Growing Our Backyard Peppers

These will go into many recipes of ours.

Love that they supplement our daily meals.

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Our Purslane Flowering Weed

Excellent in so many of our recipes.

Great added crunch to so many foods, not to mention the many health benefits.

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Our Firecracker Trees

They look like little bells.

I love everything that is unique about our backyard.

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This is probably my most favorite spot in our backyard.

The beautiful alien looking plant in the pot surrounded by so much Goldilocks, a.k.a. Creeping Jenny. I love the bold green color!

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Harvesting Peppers

This was such a great haul! I love that they keep producing!

Hot, Hot, Hot, Florida Afternoon

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Gordon Measuring For The Sails

We wanted to put up some sails in our enclosed lanai for the baby shower that we would be hosting. We also wanted them for us to help keep us cool when we were using the extended lanai. Here, Gordon is measuring for the sails.

Here, Gordon and Brodie are placing the sails on hooks and extending them across our backyard lanai extension.

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This is just a beautiful blossom from one of my plants that I absolutely love!

I love our Terra-Cotta beauty here.

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Just a Few Tadpoles in our Fountain

Trying to Ready our Backyard

Looking Good!

My Lovely Asian Beauty

Beauty Around The Bench

And, Around our Retaining Wall

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April 30, 2023

Nearing The End of our Backyard Work for Spring

Here I am planting two different mints into two different hanging baskets.

In order for these plants to be successful, a few things are needed. A hanging pot, most attractive moss like lining on the outside, and some very heavy duty plastic on the inside. Now add plenty of Potting Soil, and plant the mints you wish to use. Done!

In the photos below, you can see the mint thriving in these baskets. It’s not just about the baskets, and my keeping them moist with water frequently, it’s also about the location. This location is perfect for them! They love it here! So, if a plant does well in a certain place then do your best to keep it there so that it can continue to thrive.

We now have some great mint to use in our cooking, baking or refreshments.

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Our pathetic Backyard Lawn

(We don’t have much of a backyard, as in grassy area, but we did want to make it look good.)

I do have to give my husband credit for this because I didn’t believe it would actually happen.

On April 13th., Gordon purchased some grass seed for our backyard. Our goal was to have our backyard complete by May 1st. You see, we hosted a baby shower for our daughter and son-in-law on May 7th. All that you see us doing here was to get it all ready for that baby shower. But actually, we did all of this for us, the baby shower was just the excuse that we needed to do it in the first place.

The Grass Seed Gordon Purchased

($10.00 a Bag)

Look How Nice it is! It Kind of Looks Like we Could Comb it!

I have to admit that I was wrong about Gordon’s idea to use this grass seed. My only experience with grass seed was from when we were living in Hawaii and the birds would eat all of the seed that we would lay. I was arguing for a new lawn by professionals, while Gordon insisted we try this.

He was right! We had a beautiful lawn in weeks! It also stayed very nice throughout our party. It has pretty much lasted a little over a month. It is a temporary lawn btw. Not permanent. But, it is easy, cheap, and it looks nice when it comes in. Perfect for our little backyard patch.

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We have a few fountains around our backyard just so we get to attract these beautiful creatures who want to stop by for a drink. 🙂

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Our Fire Balls are Coming in Nicely

The Ferns Have Overtaken It

The round retaining wall you see above, Gordon built a few years ago. Once he competed the retaining wall, he then built a path around it. The tree was always there but we did plant the beautiful Ape’s (Peace Lilies) all around it. Along with some Fox Tail Ferns. It is also the place where we place our broken statuary that is still beautiful and with character. The ferns have overtaken it and are now climbing up the tree. At first I didn’t like it and I would tear it all down. But, then it just got to be too much so I let it go. Now, I’m glad that I did. It looks kind of charming.

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I love it when I plant lovely things and then they grow into something beautiful.

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Tacky Garden Bench With Lots of Character

Something Elegant Beside Something Not So Elegant

My Spiritual Place in our Backyard

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Our Backyard

Placing Air Plants In Trees

I, Julie, happen to love having plants of various heights in our backyard. I not only want to look down upon them as I enter our backyard, I also like that they are eye level, and even above my eye-sight. I love placing plants in the nooks of trees. Here Gordon is doing exactly that.

These are Bromeliads/Air Plants Gordon is Placing into one of our Backyard Trees

When we water our other plants, we just need to aim the hose upwards as well.

We Did Finish This Area of our Backyard

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Here Gordon is placing more plants in the nooks of our trees.

This is a vine that will grow, and grow, and grow.

An area we are still working on.

And an outgrown topiary tree we are trying to decide what to do with?

Still Pressure Washing

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Mackenzie’s Spring Birthday Gifts

I love that my son’s girlfriend Mackenzie, has a spring birthday. I love spring! I think that she does too which is why I love to give her gardening things that she can use in her own garden. A few things for the kitchen, and a gift card to Lowe’s so that she can pick out her own backyard gardening things.

Happy Birthday Mackenzie!

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While Mackenzie is opening up her birthday things….

Gordon and Brodie are setting up this grand umbrella for our backyard lanai extension. This will play an important role in the baby shower.

Looks BIG and GRAND! PERFECT!

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Fire Ball Trees, Gordon Ready To Plant Them

Pressure Washing The Backyard Lanai

I think the photos are beautiful that I took of Gordon doing all that Pressure Washing.

It is certainly a very Florida thing to do yearly.

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Lunch: Kickin’ It Old School

Toasted Whole Wheat Bread, Olive Loaf, Medium Cheddar Cheese, and Yellow Mustard

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The Creeping Jenny is planted and started to thrive! Also, the grass seed that Gordon planted is sprouting up nicely and is looking really good! Much better than I gave him credit for. 🙂

This was an old section that we needed to spruce up.

Cleaning it out, adding new white rocks….

You can see that this part of our old dreary backyard is starting to really pick up and look nice!

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This patch of dirt has been an eyesore for us for a few years now. We didn’t know what to do with it. Grass never grew here. At one point we had rocks lining it, but they disappeared into the soil at some point. Anyway, we did notice that since we had our trees drastically trimmed, and our neighbors behind us had 3 trees removed, that we suddenly had this flood of sunshine into our backyard. So, we decided to plant these lovely Goldilocks/A.K.A. Creeping Jenny into this section. So far, things are looking great!

Gordon Pressure Washing Our Lanai

(The black is what it looked like originally from the mold, etc. Now it’s looking so much better.)

Inside our Round Retaining Wall in our Backyard I love to place our “ruins.”

They are simply our older statuary that has become a bit broken and aged.

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April 13, 2023

Doing Upgrades

We decided to reclaim this part of our landscaping from the ferns that had overtaken it. Gordon pulled quite a few up by hand, and we planted a few things in this area, while cleaning up the older pots and statuary. We wanted it to look white and bright and clean.

We chose this No Float Mulch for this area.

NO FLOAT

No Float means that if this area floods, it won’t float away.

Unlike bark, which would float away.

Grass Seed

Prior to us getting our trees trimmed in our backyard, as well as two backyard neighbors who also recently had some trees cut down, and/or lots of branches removed, we could NEVER grow grass in this middle section of our backyard. However, now that we have more sun coming through Gordon decided to put down some grass seed to see if it would take and a yard would grow. I was sceptical at first. Our only experience with grass seed was when we were living in Hawaii and whenever anyone would use it all the birds would flock to that yard and eat it all!

But, stay tuned…..

Here Gordon is spreading around our No Float Mulch.

This mulch really does help to define what we have here, unlike a bark that wouldn’t.

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This side of our backyard is mainly mine to do with.

I almost have it completed. I just need a few more herbs and pepper plants.

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When it’s finished, I can’t wait to sit back here and read a book.

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April 12, 2023

Backyard Clean Up and Plantings

It Just Takes Time and Work

The Blue Tarp is to cover up things we don’t want to get wet until we can put them where we need to.

Living in Florida with our hot humidity, always seems to bring with it lots of mold and mildew. Sometimes the mold is so thick you could scrape it up with a knife. That’s just life in Florida. Then rainy season happens and the mold just multiplies. Believe it or not but, there have been times when our lanai was nothing but black mold!

Gordon Pressure Washing

Our gas powered pressure washer is currently in a repair shop in Lakeland, Florida. So, we borrowed our son and his girlfriend’s to use to try and get a hand on cleaning all this up. Theirs is an electric one and just doesn’t have the power to do such a good job. Gordon was able to do some of it, but not to the extent that is needed. We are hoping that ours will be ready in the next day or so, but if it isn’t, a co-worker of Gordon’s has offered us the use of his.

We even use the pressure washer on some of our statuary.

Obviously, we haven’t done that yet on these.

Dragon Fruit and Elephant Ear

This Dragon Fruit is new for us. We love eating it. We just have never grown it. Very excited to see how well it does in our backyard. But, we have had Elephant Ear in our backyard before. That is the bulb. It’s huge! I hope it does well. I do love the Elephant Ear plants.

Gordon, Cleaning up This Landscaping

We Are Also Adding Some New Pots and Plants

Silver Buttonwood

My White Rabbit and Mushrooms

I always have my Alice in Wonderland items to make me happy.

Loving This

My Serene Buddha w/ White Mandevilla

Yellow

I love my Yellow!

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April 11, 2023

Replenishing

Filling in the blanks.

Sometimes I love to buy somethings new, and sometimes I just prefer our old tried and true favorites.

Either way, I love this area of our backyard.

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April 10, 2023

Replenishing This Side of the Backyard

Really Working on the Replenishing

Potting a White Mandevilla Vine in Front of the Trellis

All The Herbs and Flowers

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April 9, 2023

The Start of our Replenishing

We visit the home improvement stores regularly.

Whether they be Home Depot of Lowe’s.

We are very domestic when it comes to our home and property.

Here, we took both of our cars to Home Depot to start stocking up on a few things.

www.BarefootInFloridaWithJulie.com

I followed him home!

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Our Many Purchases

My Bleeding Heart

Blue Hydrangeas

Some of my Herbs in the Wheel Barrel

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This Calla Lily Comes Back Every Spring

April 8, 2023

Backyard Garden Updates

Our Black Widow Infestation

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9 years ago we saw this:

A Backyard Visitor w/ Egg Sack in Tow

We didn’t want to kill this mother with her egg sack in tow, so Gordon used the shovel to move her to the back of our yard. That was in 2014. We always see a black widow or two in our yard every year, but this year they are on steroids! We have found a good 70 this year! And they have built about 70 webs as well. At first we would just destroy their webs, but they rebuild them overnight. Therefore, we have had to use our gloved hands to squash them, or an insect spray to kill them. Now we seem to be mostly ‘web free.’ We believe that this little lady probably started it all and we are dealing with her Great-Great-Great-Great Grandchildren.

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Doing Just Fine Without Me

Sometimes It’s the Ones I Ignore That do the Best

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My Herb Garden

I realize it doesn’t look too good here but, I do let it go through the winter months. It will still produce some of our favorite herbs, and some plants will go to sleep for the winter, and even a few may die, but it still mostly lives on.

Some Pots Look Bare Here

This side of the herb garden is mostly plants.

Some of them go to sleep for the winter while the rest of them do tend to survive.

My job right now is to clean all of this up. Which is what I am doing.

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March 27, 2023

Cleaning Up The Backyard (The Start)

Phase 2

The Finished Results From Our Tree Trimming

Look how nice and “clean” our trees are!

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Our Lanai’s

The only reason I am showing you our horrible backyard lanai’s is because the end results are going to be beautiful!

I do have to admit, that we tend to let our backyard go during the winter months.

Gordon and I are working on Phase 2 of our backyard. Phase 1 was all the tree trimming, I write about that below. Phase 2 is cleaning up the backyard and getting rid of all the yard debris. We are also doing our best to organize our lanai’s and put things away, or get rid of things.

The clutter that you see in the photo top right, that is all GORDON!

Gordon is the kind of person that will put something down, and never touch it again.

When he does that, he is actually leaving it up to me to deal with. So, I either deal with it, or I leave it. As you can see, I left it! 🙂

But now, we are working toward organizing this area and cleaning it up.

We do have a big goal ahead of us that we are working toward. You will find that out eventually. 🙂

Yet More Yard Debris To Get Rid Of

Can’t wait to bring you Phase 3!

Julie

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March 25, 2023

Tree Trimmers

About every 4 years we hire a company to trim our trees. And in some cases in the past, they have removed a few trees from our property. Removing a tree to us is usually a last resort. So sad to cut down something so beautiful and grand. But, in some cases the tree was too close to the house and the roots will then interfere with the foundation of our house. We started with 9 great oak trees and now we are down to 7. It looks like these remaining 7 are here to stay for now. It’s amazing how in those 4 years between tree trimming how much these trees can grow and sprout new branches.

They used a Cherry Picker in our Front Yard…..

and, they climbed the trees in our Backyard.

Our Backyard Left, Our Neighbor’s Right

Although we really aren’t required by law to trim our trees that hang over our neighbor’s houses, we do it anyway.

I think it’s only the right thing to do. One of our trees had limbs that were about to touch our neighbor’s roof. I know that we don’t want to be responsible to damaging our neighbor’s roof so we had the guys to remove all limbs hanging over their house.

They Trimmed All 7 of our Oak Trees

I was happy to have this one particular limb removed. What with all that we had done, which cost us $4,000.00, we have so much new light coming into our yard, front and back.

Two days later our neighbors directly in back of us had 3 trees removed from their property, and their trees trimmed up. We now have so much light streaming into our yard. It’s wonderful! Especially considering that we are required by our HOA to have St. Augustine grass in our yards. St. Augustine does require sun. Hard to grow in the shade.

Usually the entire block is happy when one of us trims our trees. It’s entertaining, almost like watching a coordinated tree ballet. Some neighbor’s set up chairs outside to watch the show. And, everyone is usually happy because we know that the more branches that are cut down, the less tree debris we will all have in our yards. A good wind will carry our leaves around the neighborhood into other people’s yards. The less leaves we all have, the less work we have to do. 🙂

There is another reason we are trimming all of our trees. We will be having a big party in our backyard soon.

Tree trimming is just phase 1.

Julie

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Bottom Line: (Which will be at the bottom of this page.)

Don’t interfere with a former baton twirler with a dowel at a home improvement store. 🙂