Busy Saturday

When I got home from vacation I noticed that the few little weeds that had been in my front yard had completely taken over by the time I got back. The sprinkler valve has been broken since I bought the house and the water runs constantly, so it was no wonder the weeds were growing, well, like weeds. Thursday on my way home I stopped in at Home Depot and bought a hoe, but by the time I made it home I had forgotten about it. Friday I remembered it was still in the back of the truck, so I whipped it out and went after the weeds. I don't know what they are called, but they are really stringy and grew like vines in all directions and covered the flower beds like a carpet. after about 10 minutes I had a pretty good pile of weeds on the sidewalk and things looked much better.

When Jamie got home that afternoon she gave me the mail. I had a letter from the HOA telling me I needed to take care of the weeds. Well, these kinds of letters are never nice to receive, but I was glad I had taken care of things on my own without knowing I had been chastised.

I figured I had done so well with the weeds I should take care of the sprinklers too. Rudy called Saturday morning to tell me he was going to be done a few hours early, so we made plans to work on the sprinklers. I dashed off to Home Depot again to buy a replacement valve, and while I was there I bought a few plants too. I had a few bushy grass plants that looked dead, and there were a few bubblers with no plant to water.

I started in on the sprinklers first. I'm sure that when the sprinklers were installed the valve was above ground and not in a box, so I had to dig out the bottom of the box so that I could unscrew the valve and pressure regulator from the pipes.

Meanwhile Rudy and Jamie started putting the plants in

Hibiscus is on a lot of Hawaiian shirts, but I had some grow quite well a few years ago here in Las Vegas, so I thought I would try it again.
Digging out the sprinkler valve took some time. All I had to dig with was my hands and a screwdriver, so Jamie and Rudy finished before I did. Eventually I got things unscrewed.Rudy came to give me a hand getting the valve and pipe lined up so I could screw them together.

Jamie thought it was weird that the rocks stuck to my arm

Anyway all finished!

I'm pretty proud of this Lantana I planted a month ago. It has really been growing great!

After we got done planting we drove to one of Jamie's co-workers house to pick up some lawn furniture they had been storing for her

and then we took it up to her new apartment

we were all wearing khaki shorts, so we had to show off

we went back to my house and went for a swim. the pool is not heated, but with 108 temperatures the water has been kept warm. Somehow Rudy ended up in the pool still dressed (not sure how that happened)

Later we were watching TV when Jamie showed me the tiara she got at work the other day. Rudy decided to try it on. doesn't he look great!