Marking the milestones

Matthew spends a great deal of his free time in the backyard just walking around. He has worn a path in the yard where grass just simply refuses to grow. We've lived here for two years now and last summer we began to tease him about it, and Rob fought the good fight all last year trying to coax some grass seeds to sprout but to no avail.

But now as Matthew's graduation is looming on the near future and his enlistment is looking more and more likely, we are becoming quite the pair of sentimental fools. :) (Okay, I admit it, I already was quite the sentimental fool to start with!). :) We decided that we should just let the path stay. If Matthew doesn't get into Uncle Sam's club, he'll still be here pacing away any grass that might pop up. And if he's gone this fall.... well, we want to keep this to remember our youngest by. We don't have the finances now to do much with it, but sometime down the road we're going to mulch it in and put walking stones down it.

In the meantime, I got this maybe goofy idea to put a little flower bed in one spot where he's walked a circle and left a patch of ground with about six blades of grass trying to grow. :)- snicker, snicker- I should also tell you that it's very shady back there and any grass that does come up just won't do much because of the lack of sunlight for most of the day. As you can see in the picture down there, the new grass that is coming up is after two years of Rob seeding, reseeding, watering, chasing off the boy and the dog and nursing, digging, transplanting...

Sooooo... Rob and I went out and bought some plants, and then Matthew and I went back and bought some cheap stones and mulch and the hook and basket. It's not much I know, but after a little work with my son, voila! If Matthew stays here, I've decided to call it "Matthew Knoll," but if he goes away, Rob is going to name it "Homecoming Park" and plans to etch Matthew's dates of leave into the stones for all the times he gets to come home to us.

I was thrilled too because I finally found a way to have one of my favorites- this fuschia! When we rented the other house we had a really shady front yard so these did well there, but this house, well the shady part is at the back of the yard, so I can't do fuschias hanging up at the porch or on the deck- way too sunny. But then we did this, and I got the idea that I could hang one in this spot and it would be perfect! :)

This thing is LOADED with blossoms. Just gorgeous too!

And the hummingbirds love these too. :)