Snowballs, kids and yards and such

Well the snow is gone already. Yesterday Hubby and the kids were having a snowball fight with what little snow was left and one of the neighborhood kids came by to play as well. He's a year or so older then my oldest. My dd is making friends with every girl on the street, or at least trying to. I'm so glad my kids are so much more outgoing then I am. Of course this forces me to come out of my shell as well 'cause I won't let them even go into someone else's yard unless I've met the parents. I have a feeling this summer my yard is going to be full of kids and my kids are going to, well at least try to, be scattered across the neighborhood. Not complaining 'cause this is what I wanted for them. I want them to have a sense of community, of belonging here. Never know maybe with my bunch let loose the street we live on will become a tighter knit community then it seems at the moment. Doesn't help the cold weather keeps most people inside.
Tomorrow I'm going to go and dig up some iris bulbs to plant around my ditch. I'm going to turn the ugly thing into a pretty water feature. I think the water will stay in it until maybe the hottest part of the summer. It also gets runoff from a good sized pond in a trailer park up the road. I figured that out 'cause the pond has some additive in it that turns the water a funky green/turquoise color and after a heavy rain the ditch was that color. I don't know why or what they put in the ponds around here to turn them like that but it just doesn't look right. Anyway I'm going to line the ditch with irises, I may get some bamboo/cane and some cattails. I would put some gravel/river rock in it if I wasn't afraid it would just wash into the neighbors yard. I may pick up some large rocks sometime though to put in it, to make little waterfalls. It'll make our yard stand out that's for sure. While everyone has nice, neat yards, no one seems to have lots of flowerbeds or anything. It's hard to tell just yet but it appears everyone's yards are pretty much low-maintence. I grew up with lots of flowers/flowerbeds and gardens and so to me it seems every house outta have them.