Patience is for the Birds

We have been trying to get our backyard ready to, well be a backyard instead of a sticker mess for quite some time now. It's sad when your 2 year old child, all on his own, sits on the porch after stepping off of the patio and knows how to pick stickers out of his shoes. It all started back when fire alarms were going off in our house and Rusty's dad came and sprayed the weeds. Well these weeds were pretty darn relentless and Rusty had to spray them again. And again. And again. The first time Rusty sprayed them he came in and said "so...I feel so bad, there were some little bird eggs in the middle of the yard and I didn't see them in time and I got them." Since I think that all things have human feelings I was kind of sad for a minute. He tried to be careful the next times he sprayed the weeds not to get the eggs because the mommy bird was always faithfully sitting on her eggs getting them ready to hatch. But he'd come in saying "man I hope those shells are strong, otherwise those will be some pretty crazy looking birds." I was pretty sure that they were toast. One day, about 2 1/2 weeks ago, it was DUMPING rain. Like so bad. I looked out the window and there were these 3 little perfect baby birds running around trying to find their mommy. She was calling to them to come and sit under her wings and they, like all children, were ignoring her until it started raining REALLY hard and they all went scampering to her and wiggled their way under her and stayed nice and dry while she got hammered. 

I don't know if it's because I'm a mom or if it's because I'm pregnant (Or maybe I'm just weird) but I sat and watched these birds for a while and was fascinated. And then the thought hit me, what if we start our yard soon? are we just going to bulldoze these little birds who have already been sprayed with poison? Now I'm not really a tree hugger environment crazy person, but after watching these cute little things run around for an hour I was starting to feel kind of bad about displacing these little birdies home. But I figured that it would be a while before we would even really start because Rusty's dad was going to help us and he's a pretty busy guy. But then Rusty got a phone call saying that his dad was coming with the bobcat in a few days! Oh no! I was glad to finally start, but what to do about the birds? Rusty's dad is nice, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't really care much about little birds. I already had a dead cat on my conscience (which is another story in itself) so I was trying to think of special smart ways to get the birds out of there, like making a trail of bread crumbs and luring them out or SOMETHING. A few hours later, when the dumping rain stopped, I decided to go out and take a pic of my cute new friends. But they were no where to be seen. I listened and couldn't hear chirping anymore. The birds were gone! and I haven't seen them since. My guesses, A: the birdies knew that they were going to get squashed in a few days and took off, or B: The mom was waiting for the birds to be able to be big enough and for the crappin rain to stop because she realized that the middle of a field of weeds with no protection was a HORRIBLE place to lay eggs and raise a family so as soon as the rain stopped they high tailed it out of there.

Whatever the reason, they left! And a few days later we started our yard with a clean conscience! Moral of the story: I was starting to be really frustrated that we hadn't started our yard yet. But had we started any sooner we would have squished those little birds before they even hatched! And then they left right in time. See! Sometimes it pays to be patient! (at least for the birdies sake)

And here's the progress on our yard

Day 1. Good bye weeds! Conner is such a helpful helper.

day 1. Daddy and Poppy framing Conner's sand box.  (which we still need to  put cement in 2 weeks later, But at least it's framed!)

 Conner LOVES the bobcat, or to him "Poppy trut" (Poppy's Truck) He loves to sit in it, look at it, whatever. We even have to say good night to it every night otherwise he totally freaks out. But he won't ride in it when it's actually on. It kind of scares him, a lot! As soon as poppy turns it on he starts bawling and being so so sad. But he does like to sit on the porch and watch it move.

day I'm not sure: we have our fence posts in! We just have to wait a few weeks, since everyone in the world is putting fences in right now, for the actual fence part to be off of back order.

Last week Rusty's dad helped up put the sprinklers in and yesterday, Monday, we had curbing put in for flower beds in the front and back. Here's a not so amazing pic of the back, but you get the idea. And we put it in the front flower bed as well. Now we'll just see if I can keep flowers alive. humm... I might just be calling my mom. A lot.

So, there is our back yard. All we really have left to do, and not necessarily in this order, is wait for the fence parts, finish Conner's sand box, put the sprinkler heads on and then SOD! hooray! We're almost there. I feel really really poor now but it will be worth not having to chase Conner down the street every time we go out side (especially since it is getting harder and harder to run fast with my non-existent abs)