Darren loves me.  How do I know?  When I was pregnant he built me a wall.  It took him forever, it hurt his body, and he made it beautiful.  He designed the wall so in our tiny yard I could plant vegetables waist high and weed and pick without ever bending over.  He understood how hard it was on my body when I was pregnant and how I longed for a garden anyway.  The wall also enabled us to level out our yard to give the kids a place to play.

We had first planned to hire the wall built and saved awhile dreaming of what our yard would look like.  We saved and planned and planned and saved.  When we thought we had enough we asked a landscaper for a bid.  Oh the disappointment!  We weren't even close to the amount needed for the wall.  We had enough for the raw materials so we decided to build it ourselves.  We asked the contractor for guidance and payed him a reasonable consulting fee.  It was hard work, but I'm so glad we did it!

I'm a terrible gardener but once I get out there I love it.  I plant and then let the weeds come up, sigh.  Usually I don't even take out the garden for winter.  It's not all bad, because several of my vegetables went to seed and replanted themselves for a lovely surprise.  Last year I got tomatoes, a ton of lettuce and cantalope that way.  This year I got 1 lettuce plant, and a lot of cilantro and parsely.  They are beautiful plants that came with no effort on my part.  I hope to take better care of the garden this year, but that always is my plan–grin.  Maybe–if I blog about it, I will be motivated to keep it beautiful.