Gretchen Adventures: Yard is looking like... a YARD!

Despite the fact that I realized afterward that I really do need to put in a sprinkler system and/or drip system, I made progress on my yard. Finally it's looking like a nice space. I planted grass which is just starting to come up and bought some trees, evergreen shrubs and annual grasses (still need to plant the grasses).

I also had to fix my septic system. I have a septic tank that collects the house waste before sending it into the city's system, which is more beneficial for my neighbors who are on the downside of the hill and need the help pumping up to street level. Anyhow, I have an alarm system to alert me when the tank is full; however it's been randomly going off (which a neighbor had warned me about, apparently the renters who were here just let it go off all night). Mainly it goes off around 12:45am, then I have to go outside in the dark (the first night it was pouring rain and I couldn't find a flashlight) and hit the reset button. So I called a plumber and the issue was that the bracket holding the floater (like in a toilet) was broken so the floater was just bobbing along. AND the wiring was in a waterproof box that wasn't actually waterproof, and the wiring wasn't waterproofed correctly either, so that got fried. So I also had to have an electrician come out... $500 later everything should be fine.

The only good part was that I was friendly to the plumber kid while we were waiting for his boss to show up, because after 45mins of running every faucet and me sitting there flushing the toilet repeatedly while trying to work, the tank wasn't filling up so for awhile he thought there might be a whole in my system- thankfully not. Anyhow the kid showed me how to turn on my automatic sprinkler system, which is in the front yard; it wasn't wired correctly. So now my sprinklers actually work! And I can tap into that to put in sprinklers in the back. Just, um, have to figure out how to do that. :-)

Before

Today: two of the (3) Red Spire Flowering Pear trees (will have white flowers)

The shrubs are Spreading English Yew and Dwarf Globe Blue Colorado Spruce

In the corner is a Double Weeping Flowering Cherry (will have light pink flowers). I want to put a pond and fountain in that corner eventually so the weeping cherry will hang over it.