What happened in the backyard Wednesday

It got cleared out. It got cleaned and picked up but not by me. Obviously. Remember the picture of my dining room? My backyard had the same decorating style. Lots of stuff but no good place for anything to go so things just started piling up......for years (besides, when you live with turtles, plants last longer when you keep them out of the ground and slightly elevated in their protective pots). Brian left the two trees I planted (ha ha ha) but otherwise, this photo looks exactly like what the backyard looked like when I moved in 15 years ago but um, maybe with even less plants.

Earlier in the week I gave Brian, the guy who mows my front yard, a big bonus because he's fallen on really bad times and since he is so honest and takes advantage of NO ONE, he felt compelled to spend two whole days cleaning up my backyard, not the 1-2 hours I was expecting. Well, he always does a fabulous job keeping up with the front yard but I was a little surprised at just how thorough a job he did in the backyard. My 3-4 dozen perennials that were still in pots because years later, I still had not  gotten around to putting them in the ground....all thrown out. Absolutely all of them. I was a little shocked at first but now that it's a day later, it's just a big relief not having to think about them anymore. He even cleaned my deck, rearranged Freddie's pillows and PLUMPED them. That just cracked me up. I mean really, look at this...

And here are the leftover pots.....maybe 3/4s of them had perennials in them. I had already brought in the tropical plants that can't take long winter temperatures so it's not like he threw out everything. Just the bothersome. I do kind of miss all the hostas though. :-/ But I'll get over it.

When he cleared out the many years of honeysuckle growth that completely covered the old barbecue built in the 1940s, he found the remains of a possum. When he told me about it he described it as the poor little thing that didn't make it. He left the skull for me because he knew I liked that kind of stuff. 

Poor little thing. Possums only live about 18 months in the wild. Since this guy was found in my yard, I'm sure at some points in time he came to the back door and loaded up on catfood, maybe he had some Teddy Grahams for dessert too.