As usual, I'm playing catch up. The good news is that despite my absence online, I've actually been finishing up some projects. We've had a busy couple of months. We have a horrible drainage problem in our back yard. We put in a french drain a year or so ago but that provided little help. Unfortunately our yard doesn't slope towards the drain so it continues to pool in the center of the back lawn. So, we ripped out the grass, built a small retaining wall, brought in 20 cubic yards of soil and created a slope towards the drain. (whew!) We also relocated the vegetable gardens on to the back patio so that we could get the dirt delivered as close to the back yard as possible. It was a much more laborious and expensive undertaking than we anticipated. Isn't that always the case though? The grass is finally coming in (albeit a bit unevenly), and we under-planted with crocus bulbs so it should look pretty in the Spring. In the mean time, Autumn is in full swing here