What have we been up to??!!

So for the last couple of weeks (minus a few days here and there) it has been cooler here in the scorching desert. Which is great because I was getting really tired of the constant heat. It has been cool in the morning and only getting up to the low 90's which feels GREAT! I have made it through my first summer here! Everyone says that next year won't be nearly as bad. That is good news to hear. I also WILL NOT be pregnant so that will help too!

First off...last night we were driving home from Costco and this conversation came up...

Josh:"I saw the website today. You know, it kind of looks like a Nascar car."

Me: "Our website? The family one?"

Josh: "Yeah. The post with the picture deals. You look like an advertiser!"

Me: "I don't want to look like that! I don't get anything from either company...I was just passing along something I came across. I'd better get posting so that it doesn't look like I am Nascar!"

Me: "We have been so busy I haven't posted in a while so it has been sitting there for almost a week. So I guess it would be better to bore people with our projects than to have nothing at all. And I am mentioning you said it looked like Nascar!"

Josh: "Oh really!?!"

So here is what we have been up to. Josh decided now was the time to order rock to put in the border around the backyard. So we were off to the landscape store to order rock and the next day a truck came by and dumped a huge hill off in front of our house. That night I had an enrichment meeting so I left Josh to shovel and haul all by himself. (I am pregnant so I used the pregnant card too!) When I got home...there was only a small dent in the hill. The next night-he was out hauling rocks again. I raked and he scooped and dumped. There were 3 nights of this but in the end-we moved it all. It looks so much better to have the rock down. It looks really pretty wet-but rain isn't frequent here. We had to put all of the extra on the side of the house until we get the corner landscaped but that is another project for another day.

When we began the backyard in January I told Josh that I wished we could have some of the plants that I had just planted at our last home to be in our planters down here. Spring came and when we went to the nursery I was so excited to see some of them for sale. I thought to myself...they wouldn't sell these if they didn't grow well here in the blistering heat of summer right? Wrong. Some have done surprisingly well and others have all but kicked the bucket. So if you are looking for plants that grow well in a desert here they are:

Palm trees...an obvious choice

Hibiscus bushes

Yellow daisy(?) flowering bushes

Bougainvillea aka. "the monster"

Things that do not do well:

Calla lilies

Daisies

So this fall or maybe next spring we will dig up the remains of what did not make it this year and be smarter when we go to the nursery this next time around and pick up plants that love the heat. (I would not be this kind of flower/bush!!!)

And lastly, our ward had a goal to have everyone start something in a garden. Here in the desert, most people have very little lawn, a few bushes and LOTS of rock. Gardens aren't as plentiful around here as they are up north. I was up for the challenge but as I said before... not aware that even if they sell them at the nursery there may be circumstances that, if unknown to you, will mean that all you did was buy a poor plant just to bring it home, water it, and in turn send it to it's death. I planted parsley, peppers, a couple of other herbs (as you can see, they didn't last long because I can't remember what they were any more!) a pomegranate bush, strawberries, and a lemon tree. Let's put it this way...we have had plenty of parsley-something that no family should be without right?!, a pepper bush with no peppers to speak of, 5 strawberries, 3 pomegranates that will be ripe sometime in November, and 1 lemon that has taken all year and it is only partially ripe. So this next year, I am going to be much more knowledgeable and maybe next year there will be more good than bad in our yard!

Tiny little strawberry bushes One of 3 pomegranates (see it hiding?!)

Josh's long awaited single

solitary Meyer lemon....