Spring Time Gardening

I can hardly believe that yesterday it was almost 90 degrees and today it's only 60. Not that I'm complaining. It was a bit too hot, too soon. It's going to be a bit cooler this weekend which is a-okay with me because I'm going to be workin' in the garden and painting on the third floor.
I spent about 4 hours this afternoon outside - I feel like a barely made a dent. Everything is blooming beautifully. I have tulips, violets and a few daffodils left. Unfortunately I also have a ton of dandelions and the weeds are "blooming beautifully" too.
But I also spied my cardinal today! He was in the juniper tree piping away and didn't move. Unfortunately my camera kept focusing on the leaves in the way - but there he is! This juniper tree really has to go - but things like this really make it hard. The cardinals hide in there. Sigh.
I forgot I had put daffodil bulbs like this in the garden. They are a bit later than the bright yellow ones. Just as pretty though...
The violets are exploding everywhere! I moved a bunch last year in hopes that I wouldn't have to mow them when I needed to. It worked! I have violet clumps all over the garden in much more manageable places. I moved even more today. Unfortunately I also move some impostors last year. I had to yank them all out today before I could keep going. Those stinkers! The leaves look so similar to real violets and yet they have an absolute nothing flower. Boring. They all had to come out.
I decided to start at the front. I weeded, transplanted and generally cleaned. Raked under the hedge AND - the biggest deal.... I started the brick-replacement program.
See those two darker colored boarder bricks in the image above? They weren't there before. Put those back in. And then in the image below there are a ton of boarder bricks missing as well.
Fixed that up too.
It feels nice to have cleaned all of that up. There is a gutter spout right there as well. That corner of the bed was always flooded and nothing grew there. I'm interested to see if things can grow there now. Next task is to do the other side of the boarder. I just couldn't face it today.
Just a note that my raspberries are also doing very very well. There are little buds all over them!
How did I get on this gardening kick today? Well, Ann gave me a gift certificate to Home Depot. I was only going to buy more primer for upstairs, but then she said, "well, I was going to give you something for flowers" and I thought - maybe I should treat myself to some flowers. So I did buy painting supplies and then I also bought a TON of seeds. I'm super excited to start them and get them planted in the yard. I think I'll probably devote quite a bit of time to gardening this weekend. Okay - I'm off to paint and spackle on the third floor.