Stupid Spring, or "How our backyard is a metaphor for the Island on LOST"

NEVER, in my entire life living here in Texas, has it snowed in March. Oh, except for yesterday. I'm so sick of the cold. This is one of the reasons I could not handle South Dakota. Cold weather = increased mortality rate. Go look it up. I'm worried that the end of the world is upon us. Like, hell hath frozen over end of the world type stuff.

Anyway, that's my rant for the time being. Allow me to share a recent project that Kennedy and I worked on last weekend. I'm only NOW getting around to posting it because after we finished this project, I was tired. For like a whole week.

A couple of weeks ago, we had the window in our dining room replaced with a french door.

Since this is not the project I'm posting on, I'll hold off on before and afters of the dining room.

Long story short, right outside that window was just a big patch of mud and weeds. After we had the french door installed, there was nowhere to step out and admire the even bigger patch of mud and weeds we call our "yard". (If it ever stops snowing here, maybe we'll be able to plant some new grass. Stupid spring.)

So we decided to pave a mini-patio to step out on. It has also become a landing spot for all my herb pots. Except yesterday, I had to pull in ALL of my potted plants due to the snow and freezing weather. And yes, I'm going to keep complaining about this snow throughout the post.

And now to the part where my backyard is essentially the inspiration for The Island on LOST. Last fall, while doing a big overhaul in the yard, (which included pulling things out and cutting things down so it didn't look like a jungle,) we found a huge pile of flagstone.

This little treasure literally came out of nowhere. I'm serious when I say that the pile of flagstone you see in the photo above was found when I pulled some WEEDS from around the foundation of the house. Now you tell me, how does that much stone just appear from under a pile of weeds? I mean, Kennedy had probably mowed the yard 5 times at this point. Just a little weird, in my opinion.

We didn't know what to do with the pavers, so I threw them down behind our little wall. They looked ok there.

When it came time to pave a patio, the Backyard told us through a series of hallucinations that this was what we were to use. (What? Don't you believe me?)

Let's take a look-see at our before shot of the mud & weeds, shall we?

Here we are...our big, beautiful muddy weed patch. We almost hate to cover it up with a patio. But alas, we must! The Backyard told us to.

So straight away we got to digging out a small semi-circle area for the flagstone. We hoped we would have enough to do the job.

Here is the semi-circle shape, dug out and tilled of weeds. I promise I did the work as well! Kennedy just does a better job modeling than I do.

This project was rather easy, but it wasn't without its trials. For one, we were visited by a mysterious polar bear.

He left almost as quickly as he came, never to be explained!

Then, this crazy smoke monster came out of nowhere and whooshed all around. Luckily, we got out of that one unscathed. 

 (I hope I'm not taking this whole LOST analogy too far.)

It was like a big game of Tetris, but a couple of hours later we had laid out the stones the way we wanted them. We hoped we were done, but unfortunately, stepping down onto unlevel stones is not the most stable thing. So I made Kennedy get down there and dig out individual holes for each stone. This took him forever. I tried to help, but too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the pot, you know?

Here's my boy genius' handy-work. Half-way through, that is. Notice his mud-stained knee on the far right. Such a trooper!

While Kennedy worked on that, I decided to go pull more weeds. They were growing rather large, so it needed to be done. Well, the Backyard giveth when you give to it! On my little weed tirade, I found something I'd been searching for in stores for MONTHS. 

I had looked every time I went to Wal-mart, or Target, or any other discount store, for a plant stand. For some reason, I couldn't find one that I wanted that was reasonably priced. But I needed it for a plant Millie gave me. 

But lo-and-behold, here is this plant stand, sitting in our little un-used greenhouse. In perfect condition, no less

Now answer me this, how could this plant stand have been sitting in this green house for 9 months without us seeing it? The green house walls are CLEAR. I'm convinced that the backyard had been hiding it until I pulled those weeds. Thank you, Backyard.

What's that?? You don't care about my comparison of the backyard to LOST? You just want to see this patio all finished? Fine.

BAM! There you have it. Patio, done. Painted around the new french doors, done. Next on our list is to overseed the yard so the grass will be nice and lush to walk on!

And also, I'm not finished with this LOST analogy. I have several more theories to share, but it's getting late and I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome from this post alone.