Sunday Salutations, The Lawn Reclamation Act of 2011 and a A Surprise Visit

Hey there, Sunday Salutations to all of you!  Do you ever feel like you ate way too much Mexican and drank way too many beers and margaritas the night before?  Yeah me neither.  What fun!
I'll start off by telling you I was completely surprised yesterday and that doesn't happen to often.

I was off and running first thing in the morning, pruning and cutting wood and basically reclaiming the back yard which was being swallowed up the jungle of trees and scrub growing everywhere.  Not that I enjoy having to cut more lawn but  I enjoy it more when my yard doesn't look like a scene from Platoon where Charlie Sheen is slapping giant mosquitos and ants from his neck while a python slithers over his foot setting amidst a giant slough of bamboo, vines and poison ivy (I threw the ivy in there just so I could relate).
So that is what I did.  It was hot and I had the pool full for the dogs and the hose running so I could continually wet a towel to drape over my head.

Both of these pics are of the back corner and the back "fence" row.

I had sprayed round up on the junk about a week ago.  The first pic was after I cleaned all the crap out.  It used to be plugged solid.

This area is next to my shed and it was completely packed full of crap too.  There was a ramshackle chicken coop, I think, built onto the shed and they may have just left the chickens to die because there were bones everywhere.  This is going to be one area where I have a nice shade garden and a frog pond.

Here is the view from my back upper deck at the western edge or "fencerow"

I tore down the gaudy chicken coop and built Kaitlin's rabbit, Floppy, a new little outdoor play area.  He has access to the inside of the shed where there is another pen in case it rains or what not.

So anyways I was bustin' my butt until around noon.  I had reclaimed a good amount of square footage and cleaned up the debris and officially declared it Miller Time.  It is the weekend you know!  So into the house and a shower later I was standing at the sink admiring my handy work sipping a cold beer and who of all people just happens to walk across the back deck?  My Florida parents!  Unannounced and totally caught me by surprise.  I about choked on my beer!  I don't get to see them much so what a delight it was.
They got to see our new house and we hung out for awhile and went to dinner (Mexican) before they had to leave for other venues.  What a great day it was.  I had been waiting all day to talk to my Dad because I had text him that I was going to be calling him around 8 Saturday morning.  He never answered and sent me a text around 10:30 asking if I was gonna be around most of the day.  I said I would be here all day and he said OK he would talk to me in awhile.  I had no clue that they were in Michigan.  So it was funny that I was walking around the house with my phone in my hand just waiting for him to call.  We hadn't really talked in a couple weeks and I had so much to talk about.  Then he just shows up.  Crazy!  So after dinner and one huge Dos Equis with a hunk of lime in it they went there way and we headed home for Margaritas on the back deck.  A nice cap on an already great day.

I have some after pictures of the lawn reclamation act of 2011 but I have to wait for my stupid phone to send them to my stupid email so I can access them.  New phone didn't show up last week and camera is still broke!  Bear with me please!