Flora-dation

 We don't have to travel the state to find signs of spring. The following pictures are ones I took Sunday on our property.

click on any picture to bring them up close

Tree's A Crowd

We were inside taking a break when we heard a very VERY loud CRACK! and a crash. Looking out the window we saw what looked to be a large branch that had broken off a pine tree and fallen into the dog yard.

A closer look showed it had fallen on the fence as well and appeared to be an entire tree.



Looking up we saw it wasn't an entire tree, just most of the top half, with another piece still hung up.

Fortunately we have a chainsaw and we have cut it up into more manageable pieces. We also stapled the wirefencing back into place, but we do have to wait for the fence people to figure out how to replace the broken rails.

click on any of the broken branches to enlarge the picture

Snow Shoots

Three shots of the back yard and one showing the front of our house.


To enlarge any picture, click on your favorite snowflake in it.

Aren't you jealous?

The photo to the left was taken on a recent stroll through the woods on our property.

The picture below is the view of our front yard from the bay window in the studio.

Click on each picture to get a bigger, more glorious view of fall foliage.

Fence Sitting (part 3)

The fence did get finally set up, a few days longer than expected. It even has 2 gates. The next step is to put up the wire on the inside to keep Pandora from roaming. We're hoping to have most of it done during this long weekend.

Fence Sitting (part 2)

The first section up on Thursday.

Friday two sides are all but done, with two sections next to the shed also up. Click on a fence post to get a better view.

Fence Sitting

Most of the new fence looks like this section of it, but the installers have started. They are supposed to be done tomorrow.

Fire Pit Stop

We're planning on a visit to Home Depot today to buy a lawn mower. While the 3.67 acres we own isn't all lawn, enough of it is that we want to get a riding lawn mower. It may cut down on some of the work, but it's still going to be a lot more than we had to do with the yard in Arizona. We'll be doing a lot of picking up of debris first. Pine trees, of which we have quite a few, shed a lot. Not just pine needles, which we'll want to move to keep both the grass and mossy areas alive, but pine cones, twigs, and branches. Pines are very brittle creatures with pieces constantly breaking off from temperature changes or just high winds. I've tried to do a little bit of picking up almost every day when I walk Pandora around the yard, but in spite of the accumualtion you see in the pic above, there is a lot more to gather. Like the fallen trees. And pine doesn't do well as home heating wood as it burns too hot and fast. We'll have plenty of other fallen trees to use for that once we have the wood stove set. We'll need to get a burn permit (good for one day or one weekend) to use that fire pit though. And we'll undoubtedly need to do it several times.

.

Also at Home Depot, we want to get some hardware to mount wall shelves in the studio. We still have a lot of stuff yet to be put out. And after helping Kemmer with her spring cleaning, we ended up with more books that need to be put somewhere.

.

And while we're looking around the store, maybe some adhesive to try putting the floor tiles back down in Ross's room in the basement now that the repair work is done.

.

Creative things have not been a high priority, but I've done some envelope painting for the upcoming Sunday Funnies postage stamps, but I've already mentioned that. I'm also working on a mini-comic with somebody else's characters. I hope I'll have more to report on that soon.

.

And we're both working overtime at our jobs.

.