Tabula rasa

It seems to have been a few days since I last blogged.  There's no reason for this, other than the consuming nature of having small children and the desire to do nothing at all that sets in after they go to bed.  In fact, this morning, the kids and I spent several hours watching the young son of some good friends, giving me four children for a span of time.  It actually went fine, even well, which was pleasantly surprising.  Now, to lobby Sacha for another child...not!  I can see the divorce papers being written up even now :) 

Anyway, I wanted to write briefly about a blank slate in our lives:  our yard!  When we bought our old house we fortunately/unfortunately inherited a beautiful garden.  In fact, it was so beautiful and abundant that it was almost too much - too many plants in a small space, tons of work, and nowhere for us to create something out of our own heads.  It was great in many ways and we enjoyed the carefully chosen plants throughout the year, and throughout the years.

At our new house, we have the fortune of having an almost completely blank slate.  There is next to no landscaping anywhere, except for a few plants and bushes here and there.  We also have a deceptively big yard and what feels like all the room in the world to do what we want with it.  I mention this now because yesterday was finally a nice enough day that we could do some work out there! 

We started small, with one bed that's right under the window of the master bedroom.  I did most of the grunt work, including pulling up huge amounts of thick black cloth that the previous owners had spread everywhere, and Sacha went to the garden store to buy plants and seeds and such.  What did the kids do, you ask?  They did what any self-respecting kids would do:  they made as much mud as possible and then stomped in it.  They had a great time.  We have a huge amount of work to do before the garden is the refuge and play space that we imagine it to be, but we will get there.  

In the meantime, the rain has returned and taken the nice weather away.  Lucky us, we get to escape it for a few days, as we're heading to southern California for a long weekend vacation with my parents.  More when we return!