OUTSIDE WORK DAY

Okay, finally a spring like morning with ice still melting in the animal waters and almost all the ice and snow a distant memory after the first above freezing overnight in a long long time.
After chores and breakfast I started the weekly laundry and then hubbie and I went outside to spend this first warmer day catching up on our pruning.
We worked in sweatshirts although at times a cool breeze would blow through almost making you want to run for a jacket but the warm sunshine always made us resist that urge.
We worked all morning on the plum trees, cutting out all the "black knot" disease that is attacking these resistant trees as they age. We burned all the limbs with the disease on them, although with the Wild Cherry trees all around the yard covered with this stuff it probably doesn't do any good to destroy only these infested branches.
We came in for lunch and I changed out the laundry for the second load of the day.
After lunch we tackled the area around the well house. Some of the Butterfly Bushes in this area were killed in last winter's extreme cold temps and we just didn't get a chance to prune them out last year as I wanted to see if they would eventually come back.
They hadn't and we had huge piles of these to carry off.

The area looks very different when we finished this job.

As I went around the yard pruning all the bushes I discovered we had not did any pruning last year .

I pruned and hubbie followed with the pitch fork picking up all the unwanted branches.
We finished up in the Blackberry patch where the dead canes from last year needed to be removed so the new ones could have more room.
Whew !!!  I can already tell I probably will be very sore tomorrow after all the stooping and bending.
The DOT workers repaired the guard rail that was damaged by a car during the snow last week.

Re brought little EL over to play some this afternoon. She loves sliding on this big blue slide.

She heard her daddy over at their house on a tractor and so we had to go over so she could get a ride in that tractor as he scraped their driveway. EL takes the wheel  !!

 She is definitely a daddy's girl these days.

I remember how my kids used to take up with different family members at different times in their young lives.
Baby BB slept through all the fun this afternoon riding on mom's chest in his carrier.
I came home and had a nice rest on the front porch with a cup of hot tea for the first time in a long long time. It felt very nice feeling the warm sun on my face.
As chore time came around and I had to leave my relaxing position on the porch I snapped these wintry views around the place and wondered how long it will be before the greens and purples will start to show up in advance of spring.

As I read back in the years past in my blog books by this time in most years there is already some blooms around my yard but not this year as our cold winter weather continues to keep things in dormant mode. The seesaw temperatures of this week aren't going to help either.

The setting sun photo my friend Susan sent to me this evening was a beauty as this busy day comes to an end.

I have a very nice accomplished feeling tonight along with the sore muscles as a testament to all the hard work we did today.
Thanking God tonight for the strength He gives me each day and for the beauty He created for our viewing.
Good Night and God Bless.