Am I up for the challenge?

I started this blog to keep in touch with friends and family. Unfortunately, I have been bad about posting consistently. To overcome the hump, I propose a challenge to myself. I am going to post every day through the end of May. The only exception *might* be when we are in San Francisco at the end of the month. I don't know what the internet access will be there. So, let's get on with it then!

We have been busy with the outside, mostly. We spread 5 tons of gravel in the front yard to fill in the bare spots. We also moved about 2.5 tons of river rock to make a dry stream bed in the front and rock borders in the back. Not sure how I feel about the rock borders yet. The eventual plan is to fill them in with gravel and have decomposed granite for the rest of the yard instead of dirt.
Good news is, everything is growing except for the penstamon. I don't know if it is too much water, not enough light, too acidic of soil because they are under the Aleppo Pine? Whatever it is, they are not happy.
We are also battling leaf cutters. Those little assholes are doing a number on our redbud. We have tried diatamaceous earth, flooding with water, flooding with vinegar, and busting up their house. They keep coming back. I HATE them. They are fascinating in and of themselves, but they piss me off when they eat our plants. Steve wants to get a blow torch and burn them. I don't think I will go that far.
In other animal news, we have a vermilion flycatcher somewhere in the front yard. A neighbor pointed him out to me last week, but I have not seen him since. We also have a nesting dove in the pyracanthus in the front yard. I just saw babies this morning. I will have to try to get a picture of them soon.
Oh yeah, and by better half turned 30! He got jokes about being old all day. Payback is a bitch :)

Until tomorrow!