So, since we are not out of town and Robert had Memorial Day off from work, we have treated today as an extra Saturday. Robert woke up really early (1 Snooze after 5 AM to be exact) to work on the yard. If you are thinking that it is still dark at 5 AM, remember that Arizona doesn't have Daylight Saving Time, so the sun comes up earlier here. Also, since it is almost June, it gets pretty hot here, so Robert needed an early start.
When we first moved here, the previous owners had a lot of cactus plants on the East and South sides of the townhouse. We were OK with leaving the cactus here because it was low maintenance and we didn't have any children. Below is the East side of our house with the cactus:
Well now we have a child that is walking like crazy. We have been fortunate that Luke has never gotten into the cactus, but realize that he could very well eventually. So we decided to get it removed.
We had to get permission from our HOA to have it removed. It took them a month and a half to respond, but they did last week, so today happened to be a perfect time to get it complete.
As mentioned above, Robert got up at 5 AM (OK, he did hit the snooze button once) and started. Our brother-in-law, Jonathan, came over at 6 to help. We borrowed tools from Shelley's dad and brother and Jon brought over a couple of tool. They removed all the cactus on the East side, but left the cactus on the South side. They also removed all of the bark that we had put out earlier. They were done by just after 8 o'clock. They were feeling very prickly by the time they were done, but it was satisfying to see the progress. Here is how the front yard looks now:
