Spring Cleaning!

 Has anyone noticed the changing seasons?  Spring used to come to my house in April.  It's already PAST mid May and it just arrived.  We are having nice cool nights, and days in the very low 80's.  I'm liking this a lot!!    So much so that I got a really crazy idea to clean up my patio.  

I rarely spend any time out there other than to throw the ball for Mr. Cooper.  You wouldn't think with so many houses around that it would be so dusty dirty.  Seriously there was a quarter inch of dirt on everything.  First off, I needed gloves and got distracted looking for my box of tools from the Arizona house.  I never did find them OR the gloves.

Next, move all the old furniture and rugs out.  The chair is a throwback to my old RV of 15 years ago.  These will go in the FREE pile out front.

Yes, probably 59 daddy long leg spiders were hurt in this endeavor.  It's the perfect environment and they can completely cover the walls with webs.  There's so much dust and dirt that the drain in the outdoor kitchen against the back wall, was plugged up.  It drains, but barely.  Here's another spot I never can figure out how to arrange seating in.  

Many times I've thought about nice patio furniture, but it's so dirty, it would be covered all the time. 

For those that know ... you KNOW how clean this is NOW!!!  I swept for over an hour!!!  It should be good for the next year or two!!

No running today ... it's a day of rest ... but Cooper and I did go out for a walk to find someone just dumped their trash in the road.    

I guess the next time I'm going to have to start carrying trash bags.  There were fast food bags all along our route.  Add to that, as we got back to the house, there were three kids in my circular driveway spinning donuts on their bikes, making marks on the concrete.  HEY!!!  GET OFF MY PROPERTY!!  They were within ten feet of my front door!!  Who does that?  Who doesn't teach their kids NOT to do that!!

In preparation for Wednesday's project ... getting this old misshapen and uneven concrete edging replaced ... I spent an hour digging out the sprinkler heads.  I wanted to be sure they were seen and not torn up.  The edging is supposed to have nice curves, and they will move and/or replace sprinklers as needed.  YAY!!  I can't wait for it to be finished.  I imagine some gopher condos will be damaged in the process.  Hopefully they move to the neighbor's house.

Next up, I put Post-It notes in the FRONT yard denoting the landscaping lights whose wires have been cut in half by ... you guessed it ... the previous gardeners.  So much damage to repair constantly.  Those will be fixed today also.  It's only money, right?

Since it was Sunday, there was no banging next door and no men on top of the roof, so I tried to sit out and read.  Actually what I did was spend all that time looking up real estate in various places.  I guess I'll just have to go in person, because I'm only finding million dollar houses in Prescott and Sedona.  The price of everything has gone through the roof, but real estate is just crazy right now.  

I'll keep looking since I'm having a hard time accepting this view out my back windows.  The further along they get, the closer it gets to my house.  Big trees ... I need some BIG fast growing trees!!  In the meantime, I'm praying for a nice quiet retired couple.   

More spring cleaning to come!!!!  I still have the garage to go through.