This may look like an ordinary garden to the unaided eye, but to me, it something special -- my first honest to goodness garden. Oh sure, I've planted a few annuals here and there from time to time. Or purchased a hanging flower for the porch. But this was something else altogether.

My mother-in-law Polly is quite the gardener. She was cutting back her perennial garden a few weeks ago and offered to pass some along. All my gardener friends told me what a beautiful gift this would be and that I should consider the offer. The only problem? The garden area wasn't quite deep enough -- we needed more dirt, which also meant another row of bricks to make the plot deeper. Greg was planning to try to help out with the dirt & brick work, but got busy elsewhere. Meanwhile, the perennials needed planting before they died. So I hopped on the project and headed to the compost facility.

With Cate and Kaes in the back of the car, they "oohed" and "aahed" at the little mini dump truck that dumped dirt in the bed of Greg's truck. I then headed to the brick store and picked out the closest matching bricks. Lisa came over and helped me with a wheelbarrow to unload all the dirt and place the bricks. Polly came that night to help show me some tricks for replanting. Talk about "it takes a village!" These steps may sound simple, but it was a good half day project of hard labor just getting the dirt and bricks laid out.

Well, the end result should be quite nice, don't you think? I think it will be a beautiful garden, and the fact that is perennial and will only require this amount of work once, with pay-offs each spring is beautiful. And most important, I was just so proud to get it done, even if Greg couldn't help. With all my helpers, it made me feel like a million bucks to get it accomplished. Well, a million bucks with a slightly sore back! :-)