Day 114: Doing the dirty work

When I got home from work this evening, Exile #3 and Exile #4 were industriously re-landscaping the back yard. Exile #3 had piled some 'dirt' (as she now calls it) on the swing seat (later partially tidied up using her dress and completed by me with a brush). Exile #4 was digging a hole, filling a bucket and then carrying the bucket up onto the deck and emptying it into the scoop on the back of the tricycle. Do you want to help Daddy? No that's fine - I'm just watching.

The yard is very tidy at the moment thanks to the a spring tidy up carried out by two young men with enormous rakes and a leaf-blower. Sadly, they were not from the fantastically named local company "Lawn Dawg" but you can't have everything. They have temporarily recreated the mountain - this time from leaves and twigs and down by the road where the local highway department will collect it from at some point - I suppose they value a tidy town above the cost incurred for the collection - it caught me by surprise.

Soon after I took this we went, at Exile #3's urging, to a local garden centre to buy some bedding plants to brighten up this little area. In fact she was the one who started the dirt-digging having been 'planting and growing' this week at school. I dread to think what she might be bringing home with her from 'bug week'.