Spring is bringing forth a few more surprises in the yard, as it does. One of them is patches of mushrooms in the back yard. I'll have to look these up to see if they're edible. 

In a back corner of the yard, I noticed a familiar herb. It's spearmint! 

This is the patch of ground behind the neighbor's garage that backs up against the east side of my back yard. It's about 4 feet by 20 feet. I hoed it all up a few weeks ago, and noticed some baby potato and carrot plants. Maybe this was a vegetable patch in the past, but with all the rabbit activity in the yard, I'm not sure how much it really yeilded. So, when I hoed it up, I sprinkled three bagfulls of wildflower seeds in and watered them down. Right now I'm calling this my experimental patch, and will wait to see what comes up. There are a few sprouts here and there, but today has been super windy, so there is a lot of debris over the area. Regarding the bags of wildflower seeds - each was rated for NW Ohio, so they should be suited to grow here. And each bag contained approximately 10,000 seeds. We'll wait to see what the experimental patch of 30,000 wildflower seeds yields, if anything. I have low expectations. 

This is the Weeping Cherry tree. It was just buds yesterday - they exploded open today. 

...and a detail shot of the Weeping Cherry tree. 

These are some of the most interesting little wildflowers - they're actually a mint-green color. I've only seen green flowers during St. Patrick's day, after being dyed. 

Here are some blue things that look like Texas bluebonnets, but not quite, in the front yard. 

Mystery Tree. I thought this was a pussy willow tree because it looked a lot like the tree in my neighbor's yard, that definitely is one. However, this weekend, the bulb things bloomed out into flowers. My neighbor's pussy willow tree didn't do this - it created these small shaped bottle-brush type things that are shedding all over my back deck. They didn't flower at all. So now, I'm not sure what type of tree this is - there are very tiny leaf buds but they are few and frequent. It's definitely different. 

Here are a couple of the daffodils that have been hiding underground. With all the similar green shoots coming up I was hoping to see them across the whole front of the house. Turns out there are a total of 4 blooms, these three near the sunroom and one in the front. But they're nice to see nonetheless. 

Katman is watching me snap a few photos from the sunroom - this is his second-favorite daytime perch, with a view to the action out front and the squirrel and bird activity in the adjacent tree. 

Finally! A rain-free weekend. My maple tree is starting to bud out, and even without the leaves it provides a nice shade canopy. The most surprising thing about the back yard is how green the grass is. It's that super fine bluegrass stuff which I understand requires more frequent mowing than other types. Guess I need to get a mower.  

Wallpaper Project Part II - beginnings. I've decided to address the smaller bathroom and get all of the wallpapering effort out of the way. The ladies who do the work are slow as molasses but they do excelent, qualitiy work. During the work in the bigger bathroom, it took 2 ladies 4 days to strip and repaper the room. This was because they took Thursday off to go bowl. In the half bath, they've stripped it a week ago and left all of their tools in a tidy pile in the bedroom - but have been incognito for a week. I haven't heard back from them in a week. I'm trying not to think this is odd. In this town, where you can walk through a furniture store for 40 minutes unapproached and give up on trying to buy something because of salesperson apathy, and where service providers often opt to simply not call or show up for appointments, maybe the fact that I have their tools and supplies stockpiled in my bedroom is a good sign. Maybe I'll learn more about that this week.  

Here is where the mirror was on the half bath. Makes you wonder what would make unfinished drywall discolor like that, underneath wallpaper. Ugh. For this room I chose a wallpaper that looks like an organic weave - not in a cheesey 70s way, but in a neat new age way. It's a horizontal pattern which should make this smaller-than-a-closet water closet a little more roomy feeling.  

Bathroom Wallpaper Completion - Part I. Here's a seam shot...you can see a wallpaper seam just to the right of the light switch. I guess that's not horrible, but my eyes go to it pretty immediately. I think it was the nature of the paper - the mosaic shaped tiles were not perfectly aligned on the paper - which was why I selected it, thinking that my not-quite-90-degree corners would be better disguised this way. Problem is the paper tiles started flush left on the side of the roll of paper, so when hanging one strip, the right edge would be differently aligned tiles. But, it makes the room look literally 3 times larger than the bat-cave, floral-vomit junk that was up there previously. 

So, here is the main bathroom, wall paper completed and reinstalled fixtures repaired (in one case). Now I've realized that my small mosaic tile wallpaper pattern makes the room look humongously empty. What kind of wall decor is next? I don't want to hammer nails into the paper...the walls are plaster so anything of any weight significance would require molly bolts and look horrible when I leave and try to sell. Tho in keeping with the whole mosaic bathroom I'm leaning toward a lot of ivy. Except the shelves around the tub are not wide enough to hold potted plants. I'm out of ideas on this one.