Backyardigans...or Back Yard Again...

I've never seen the cartoon, but I know the title. Anyway, we've been working in our backyard a lot lately. Well, only when it's not over 100 degrees, which it has been for the last 13 days in a ROW! Enough about that. We put up a shade over our raspberries to protect them from the sun because they were getting sunburned. That solved that problem, but then they lost all their flavor because we hadn't fertilized them in a while. So we fertilized them and they have all their luscious flavor back! Hoorah! Here's to all who told us we couldn't grow raspberries in the valley...you can with a lot of TLC!

We were SO excited when Braden's brother in law, Nicho, called last week to tell us he had a few truckloads of free 3/4 in rock that we could have for FREE for our backyard. So he dumped it off in the street in front of our house and Braden has slowly been bringing it to the back. Thankfully, he has Keara to help.

No, really, he's been doing a great job. But considering it's been over 100 13 days in a row (enough about that), I can't truly encourage him to get to work when I won't even step outside, let alone haul wheel barrow after wheel barrow of rock. He worked tonight for a couple hours when there was a lot of wind and it wasn't that hot and still came in dripping like a faucet. Poor guy. He's about 1/2 way done with the yard, though almost completely done with the pile. Looks like we'll need another shipment.