I don't know how people stay on top of housework and yardwork. Seriously. Dust, laundry, dishes,
papers (PAPERS!), weeds, pruning, weeds. I love having a yard to play in, but it's a lot of work.
We used to have a lawn of Bermuda grass, and decided to replace it with a (mostly) native
landscape. Here is what it looked like after we dug out all the grass.

With the exception of the very old Meyer lemon tree, an apple tree that was a gift from my realtor,
and a couple of heirloom roses that came with the house, we dug out the ENTIRE lot. Then we put
in a path made of really pretty cut rock, a pond (with a solar-powered fountain), and a huge number
of plants. Here you can see a handful of sunflowers (just for the season), a rosebush, and a few
native grasses and flowers. After this photo, we put a border of rocks around the pond so you can't
see the dumb plastic form. In this shot you can barely see the apple tree in the far corner near
the sidewalk.

We put these dancing crabs by the pond. I found them at an art festival in Laguna Beach and
fell in love. They have so much personality - the artist makes everything out of recycled material -
who knew you could get so creative with old spoons and forks?

(I just tried to see if I could find the artist online - I haven't yet, but I did find this -
aren't the birds in their little nests just beautiful??) This is the yard today.

It's November so not a lot is blooming, but it is all completely overgrown and needs some
solid attention. Oxalis has blanketed everything and I haven't even started to think about
the winter vegetable garden. Ugghh. Maybe it's time to call in the professionals.