grass!

One of the best things about our house is the nice big backyard. Unfortunately, we didn't have grass in it for quite some time so Jimmy just got to run around in the dirt (and occasionally mud).  When we moved in it looked like this:

Kind of cool and overgrown like a big forest, but the huge pine trees were preventing any grass from growing so we had to take them out.  One other tree was dying, but we got to keep three pretty big ones and one orange tree.  We planted a little ruby red as well.  We were going to put down Bermuda grass back in the spring, but we realized how an level our yard was and wanted to fix that problem before we put any money into grass.  The back corner of the yard was much higher than the rest and didn't get any irrigation water.  It was also really hard and rocky.  Despite Zach's best efforts he gave up and decided we needed to hire someone to do it or it would take him the rest of the year.  Here was the work in progress:

 It took us awhile to actually get around to doing that so come October when we had it done, we also planted winter grass.  This is probably a strange concept to people not from around here, but in Phoenix the year-round grass turns brown around November so people that want green grass in the winter plant Rye but they have to replant it every year.  This year we were so anxious to have a nice yard that we decided it was worth the money.  I am so glad we did.  Here is the yard now:

I love having grass!