Our complex's best balconies!

After having lived in Las Vegas for nearly a decade, I was ready for some dang land when I moved to Texas!

After seven and a half years of dealing with an acre and a half (including thousands of linear feet of edging), I was ready never to have to maintain a stinking lawn again!

I've loved living in an RV and renting because I don't like "wasting" my time with yard work.

I do, however, enjoy being outside on mild occasions, one of the (few?) perks of living somewhere that it's hot: You can sit outside in the shade many afternoons and it's tolerable, and maybe even enjoyable.

Both at the Nuthaus and here at Vogefutter, we've loved our patios. They're seriously an extra room for us, and our lives would be much more claustrophobic without them.

For instance: You might have noticed that we had Daphne's birthday celebration on our patio. My sister and one of my nieces (I always spell that word wrong on the first pass) have horrific cat allergies, so it's nice to have them over and them not die or whatnot.

However... some of the people up in this complex have really gone the extra mile in making their "outside room" spectacular. Mostly, this involves lots of plant life... between the cats, the babies, and my killing things (besides my sister and niece - spelled it right that time because I typed super slowly), I don't know that this is an option for me.

But I certainly appreciate (and am mildly jealous) of their efforts. Here are some pictures from around the complex.

 Some of the downstairs units have recently had gates put up so that they have a wee "yard." So cute!

I like that the scarecrows are really for us. :)

We might be able to pull off something like this. Not too many plants, but still a nice space.

This is our caddy-corner downstairs neighbor, the 90-year-old woman and her 70-year-old daughter. They put out carrot chunks on the patio to draw rabbits. It works!

Pretty sure they're growing weed. Okay, maybe not. But this is a HUGE patio (the biggest model in the complex) and they have several structures with plant lights, and they also have the additional plastic I'm guessing to keep their dog from shimmying out between the railing. It's not too impressive during the daytime, but it's kind of hard to see what's going on at night, too. Whatever it is, it's a lot.