My husband loves me

My husband has the green thumb in the family. I certainly do not- I mean, even DESERT plants die under my care, I have no idea how I do it. It's an art, I guess.

I've always loved roses, especially because they remind me of my grandparent's home in LA. They always had the most beautiful roses in their front yard. I was sad when the new owners of that house tore out the rose bushes- we have decades of family photos taken in front of those roses!

Dear Hubby has all sorts of fantastic ideas for making the backyard an idyllic spot. After all, we do live in Southern California, and our little postage stamp of a lot has more yard than house. We figure if we can live in the backyard half the year it'll be worth it. To make the backyard perfect requires cleaning up a lot of overgrowth, even though I like some of what is out there some of it will go (apparently, my artistic talent includes thinking weeds are pretty).

He has been on this amazing clean-up-the-backyard streak, which began with chopping down a dead palm tree and hauling it away. My dog has finally let us have flowers again (well, for now), so my husband planted two small rose bushes to see how they would do.

He even picked my favorite colors- pink and lavender!

He also was trying to create more room for new plants by trimming the trees in the backyard. When he got out there yesterday, he made it through a few branches before a wire from the power lines fell on him- he's lucky he didn't get electrocuted- but it turned out to be an old communications line (a "dead line" not a "live line") so they telecom folks came out today to clear the old wire. It looked like the line had been cut years ago but never taken down. I asked telecom company if they would trim the tree away from the wires (it is not our tree, but belongs on the property of condos behind us), and they just laughed at me. Yea, right, lady. Trim it yourself!

Still, the wire falling put the scare right in my hubby! Add that to the burst pipe in our backyard last Friday, and we've had one exciting homeowner's week. Let's hope that's it.