The Front Yard was Hit Hard

 

An acquaintance posted that she was re-doing her backyard and had a lot of river rock to give away for free if we came to haul it out. I hauled two loads in the back of my minivan to make this lovely dry creek. 

Another day, I took the kids for a morning walk with Felix in the baby carrier. We went out to the desert behind the neighborhood and stumbled upon a huge cholla cactus skeleton in great condition. I felt pretty cool lugging it home with a baby strapped to my back and a gaggle of kids with me. Between the rocks and the cactus decor, the front yard was looking better than ever!

So naturally, our mesquite tree had to split in half. We came home from Sunday dinner at Casa Johnson around 8:30pm to find that our tree had fallen and was completely blocking the road. Some neighbors were helpfully out with flashlights to stop people from driving into it on the dark street. Somehow, the tree avoided all houses and cars that it could have fallen on. It was super close to the cars on the far side of the road, and would have put a big ol' dent in Joanna and Rayne's cars if they were still there.  

Someone had already called the non-emergency police line to report that the road was blocked. By the time the police showed up, Aaron and some neighbors with a reciprocating saw had mostly cleared the road. The officer declined to help because it was already in good hands, but we still showed up in the local newspaper Public Safety Log!

Does it get more heartwarming than that?

 It's lucky that we weren't home when it happened because all of our vehicles would have been stuck in the garage until we got a tree service out to mulch it for us (Stephen's suggestion- we all have great mulched trees now!)

This seems like an appropriate place to log the fact that Aaron had a long, sweaty battle with a leaky hose bibb. Neither of us even knew the term "hose bibb" when this saga began- it's the fixture that you attach a garden hose to on the outside of the house- but now Aaron knows a whole lot about it because he systemically replaced most of the parts related to it one at a time before he finally filed a cut into a massively corroded vacuum breaker to remove it. The record should show that I attempted to persuade him to give up and hire a plumber at every step along the way, but he persevered and now it is finally drip-free!