Here's The Mail, It Never Fails

...finish that song!

In addition to getting a sunburn today, one of my projects was the jungle that was our mailbox:

There was an enormous giant plant growing from beneath it.  You could barely see the numbers on the side.  To top it off, the name on the mailbox was from TWO owners ago!  Not us, not the people we bought it from, but the people who built the home!

So, obviously it needed a "haircut".

I pulled the plant out.  That took about 35 minutes.  Then I realized that if I didn't dig the roots out that it would probably come back.  Ugh.  I literally spent the next two hours digging every last root from ground.  I also discovered that if I dig 4-5 inches down I hit pure sand.  I knew our soil was supposed to be sandy and all on the shore, but geez I didn't know it was all pure sand below the surface!  I ended up with about 40 pounds of roots, weeds, and dirt.  After all of the digging was done, I was left with beautiful loose soil on top. Then, I planted two new flowers that I got from Lowe's.  I bought yellowish Chrysanthemums.  Mainly because they were cheap.  But also because they are perennials and they can stand the sun all day long.  And also because I love that book by Kevin Henkes:

  

Have you read it?  If not, you definitely should.  It's an excellent children's book.  Anway, after I planted the flowers I added a layer of brown mulch.  Last but not least, I scraped the letters off the front and spray painted the mailbox after sanding the rust away.  Here is the mailbox before:

 And the finished product:

Before:

And after:

Not too bad, huh?