Yesterday was a "If you give a mouse a cookie" type of day in the yard.  (For those of you not familiar with the children's book, if you give a mouse a cookie, they'll want a glass of milk, and then they'll want to look in the mirror, then they'll want a napkin to wipe their face, and then....and then....)  I started a small project - adding soil to my raised beds.  Six hours later, I finally quit working in the yard!  (Notice that I didn't say I was finished in the yard, just that I quit...) 

AJ and I had picked up (okay - he picked up - I just drove....) 6 bags of soil, 3 cubic feet in each (which is why he them picked up...) on Saturday afternoon.  Sunday morning, I put them in the beds....and it barely made a dent in what I needed.  Back to the store....

We picked up 9 more bags of soil (and one 6-pack of pansies) and AJ helped me get them out by the garden beds, and his work was done.  I was able to manhandle the bags and get them dumped in the beds, and all of the beds are filled now!  But, as I was working around the beds, I realized I had not cut back the oleander this year (the neighbor has huge bushes that overgrow my fence, limiting my access to my garden).  So...off to cut them back.  You can see some of the foliage and flower in this photo of my filled beds.)

And then there was light!

Just for comparison - here's what I had before:

Much better now!   But, since I had the clippers out, I cut back the oak tree growing by the garden, the crepe myrtle trees by the fountain and by the water spigot....and then...time for that 6-pack of pansies.  I had petunias in a pot by my rose tree, and they were beyond spindly.  

As I started working on them, I noticed that the star jasmine had started to growing on the small greenhouse I have, and then I noticed it was actually taking over the corner of the yard!  It was holding the gate shut into the side yard, growing over the sidewalk to get out to that area, and generally taking over!  Since that area is used to store my generator, it's kind of important to get to.

It was actually growing on and around my generator - not a good thing!  I cut back tons of jasmine (it felt like a ton by this time, I assure you - my arms were tired from clipping the oleander branches over my head!) and hauled it to my dump trailer before I could get back to the pansies.  But - mission accomplished!