My brother's girlfriend, Lisa, pulled off a surprise party for my brother. (Yep another Brad and Lisa in my life). Rick and I helped as the "diversion". We headed out for a nice dinner then, true to form, my brother bugged us to go out for drinks. We agreed after his typical prodding. He was certainly surprised!!
The garden was constructed on a flat lot. The husband and wife duo worked hard by building up several garden beds using large boulders as their base. They then added multiple trees of several varieties throughout. The remaining space in the garden was infused with several varieties of low maintenance perennials. Having the same varieties located throughout the garden in different areas provided consistency and "flow" to the garden. I counted over 20 Japanese Maples!! The garden was titled "Labor of Love". 
My favorite new plant that I feel in love with is the Foxtail Lily. Courtesy of Battle Creek garden tour. Thanks Lori for the invite. We had a blast! I simply love plants!!
For two years, Rick and I have debated - trees or fence, fence or trees. Our hedgerow has grown completely out of control and I'm tired of trimming the mess without the reward of a well-trimmed hedge. It's more like a well-trimmed mess. So again, the debate ensued. On the quest for a few herbs my favorite nursery didn't have in, I stumbled across the deal of a lifetime at Lucas Nursery. When Rick got back in town, I told him the good news. After checking it out himself, he agreed. Trees it is!! We decided that the goal would be the first weekend in June for install. We spent the weekend before cutting down the existing treeline. After getting out what we could, we asked Geoff to come over and dig up the tree trunks. Yep, our headgerow had full-sized scrub trees in it. Digging them out by the roots was the only way to stop future growth. We attempted it ourselves with Rick's truck. However, we weren't willing to risk the damage to his 12 year Ford or deal with the exucriating labor involved. It took Geoff a total of 2 hours to dig everything up. Saturday, June 6th, we got up at 10am and started the installation of the 43 Arborvitae trees. Believe it or not, we were done by 7pm that day with one tree leftover. 
Our Memorial Day weekend was a reunion of sorts. Rick was out of the country for the full week prior and I left for Colorado 3 days preceeding his departure for the best seminar I've been to in a while. Ninja Selling. (More to follow later). SweetPea was in the safe hands of Grandma & Grandpa Sadler for 4 days. As soon as we all arrived home, we immediately turned around to head out for our scheduled backpacking trip. I was dealing with a cold and Rick was dealing with severe jet lag after having been awake for over 27 hours. With the latter issues, we decided a nice primative campsite, some fishing, some reading and a canoe trip was a much better fit. 
SweetPea loves Hobo Dinners. Look at how cute she is. This makes it very hard to resist from feeding her off my plate.
Rick got a full day of sunshine, some great river fly fishing and cigar smoking time in. SweetPea and I curled up with a few good books. I finished 3 books that day. The best vacation time ever.
Afterwards we decided to go to a local fishery to feed the fish. I love how the fish are so excited to see you and just can't wait for you to throw them a pellet or two. I must admit, it's not cheap to feed the fish. Honestly $15 for admittance and pellets is absurd. If I could remember to pack SweetPea enough food we could sneak in and get our thrills for free but I'm never on top of it that much. Luckily I remembered her food at all with the preliminary circumstances to the trip.
The next day was just as beautiful. Warm, sunny with a nice cool breeze. Rick and I woke up and decided to spend it on the Au Sable canoeing. This was SweetPea's second trip. She is not a big fan of water. I have made sure she knows how to swim "just in case". Each time we take her out she gets a little braver than the last time. This round she sat on my lap the whole time. She was pretty alert the first half and then she got sleepy. I had to tuck her into my sweatshirt because her little naked belly was starting to burn.
Day three of our time off was spent exploring the gardens of the MSU campus. They have some great display gardens. The most inspiring part of the gardens is seeing all the students digging and taking notes as they plant the horizons. I got some great ideas and notes of specimens I want in my own landscape. I can't think of a better way to spend my vacation!
Sunday I rode my bike to the gym to test how long it would take. It was a little scary to install the bike rack on my car. Rick would be proud though. Then the remainder of the day was spent picking Garlic Mustard and Dame's Rocket in Miller Woods park with my gal pals. Ladies - thanks for braving the yucky weather to make an impact on the world. You rock!! 
