A real live gardener lives here

Tonight I was watering some plants, when I turned and saw this view:



Sort of pretty if you ignore the BBQ pieces strewn about, right?

What if I told you that 3 years ago, to the week in fact, it looked like this:



My goal was to create a planter around the AC unit to soften it. Our raised bed adventures have completely transformed the side yard into usable space. The nasty black mulch is history. A walkway has been created from stepping stones found as we removed grass. (Yes, really. The grass grew over them. We find a new one about every 6 months still buried in the yard). The pathway has been marked by smaller stones we've dug up (aka. "Folsom potatoes"). The existing plants have grown in. We've added color which was sorely lacking in the backyard.

I couldn't help feel like my garden plan was sort of coming together, and I meant for it to be that way. It's weird to get to a place where you can look back and feel like something is working, and the hard work isn't all for nothing. That there is a garden growing here, not just an endless laundry list of projects, which is what I see when I gaze over the yard. Future plans, ideas, things we could do.

I felt accomplished for, like, a whole minute. And then I remembered I needed to finish watering.