Sorry for the slow loading, I tried to be selective, but this page still has eleven pictures on it.  So, read the captions while they load, and please be patient!

Since so many of the other tenants of our little building are either very old or very busy, or just didn't care - the backyard had been left to its' own devices for years and years.  We've never had a yard for the kids to play in before, and it's one of the major highlights of our apartment.  Kyle was quite happy about it too - we're all looking forward to church BBQ's and fellowship times in the yard this summer.  We're the only ones in the church leadership with a yard.  Many of the guys from the church came over and really helped in digging up humongous weed roots - we're talking the size of foot-balls, and bigger!  Norbi and the guys dug up the whole yard, transplanting some Iris and violet plants in the process.  We're still not done with the landscaping, having more plans and ideas than money right now - but we're going slowly and having fun with this whole new world of gardening.

BEFORE

This is looking back at the house - that's the new bathroom window and the kids' room window there at the right.  And that's the door into the main corridor.  Basically all the plaster has fallen off the house, leaving only the original brick.  The big and ugly cement bar thing was used to hang carpets on and beat them in the spring.  Norbi took it out and fixed a metal pole in a different location for the same process for the neighbors.

Looking out over most of the yard - the house behind and to the left.  Those are the Irises in their old place at the left - the rest is just weeds, and early in spring, before anything much had grown up.  The pine tree was planted when Norbi was small.

There's a four story apartment building over the back fence - which Norbi used to climb over as a kid.  Too old and rickety to be climbed over now!  There was just all sorts of junk laying around - piles of trash and bits of this and that can be seen in that back corner of the fence.  Norbi and the guys from church even found a cat skeleton back there - very glad our kids didn't find that!

This is the right side of the yard, taken up mostly by the old building that is now used for storage but was originally where the laundry would have been done - back when everything was first built.  It's broken into four sections, one for each tenant.  Our part is through the door at the very end, seen in this picture.  Norbi has really worked at emptying that storage space of all the junk it had been holding, and we can now store our BBQ, plastic table and chairs, kids' balls and stuff and Norbi's moped.  That vine seen climbing up the old building is Trumpet Vine, which is getting ready to bloom any time now.

AFTER

Joshi with his baseball bat and Anna chasing her ball in recently mowed grass - we're so thrilled with the 'happy grass'.  And the Trumpet Vine here is almost ready to blossom.

Norbi hanging up Anna's new swing, and Anna watching very fascinated!  You can't see it, but he hung the swing on the pole he positioned for the neighbors' carpet beating - more out of the way, here at the back of the yard, then right in the middle of it.

Anna loves her swing!

We lined the Irises along the walkway, with the violets as a border in front of them.

Anna on her bike next to some more Irises and the Trumpet vine, just beginning to get it's leaves in early spring.