Flower Beds

So this is really delayed, but a few weeks ago Clay and I decided to pull out all of the pine straw from our flower beds in the front and lay down mulch instead. Our house was built in 1999 and I'm pretty sure that every year since then new pine straw was just layed over the old layers. It took us forever, but we are very happy with the end results. Also, while we were pulling out the pine straw from near the front door we came across a slithery little friend. Our conversation went something like this:

• Clay (with the rake in hand, but looking in another direction at an actual worm - not at the rake): Oh look, that's a really big worm.
• Amber (looking at the rake as he's pulling out the pine straw - at the top of my lungs): THAT'S NOT A WORM, IT'S A FREAKING SNAKE!!!

For those who don't know, I am NOT a fan of snakes no matter how small they are. Unfortunately, since I was too busy screaming and running in the opposite direction I was not able to get a picture of the snake.

I forgot to take a before picture, so this is an in-process picture. :)

Clay is just so proud of his finished project!

However, while we were slaving away in our front yard, our neighbors were mowing their backyard and they found a nice little surprise as well. In between their fence and our fence they found a divot in the ground that was home to four newborn moles. Now I realize that moles are VERY bad for our yard, but they have never in a little over two years found their way underneath our fence, so I didn't want to kill them. They were tiny and couldn't have been more than a couple weeks old. Somehow I convinced the neighbor's son to take them out into the woods - I just couldn't justify kiling them. Because they were so young though, they probably died anyways. But they were just so darn cute. See for yourselves!