June 16, 2012 Our New Yard



Our new front yard with
the drainage rock on the south side.



Looking north to the tipi,
where the greenhouse will be.

Our garden

Our mountain quiet is even more appreciated now after the last two incredibly noisy days.  The grounds outside our home are completely different, having been attacked by a backhoe and a bulldozer, but it's all good.  Even better than we had envisioned.  Now we just need the grasses to grow back.  It's going to be a dusty summer.

The three little trees in our front yard are gone and so are three of the four stumps.  It looks so much larger, and now we have so many of the details to take care of.  Kind of moving into a new house, only it's a new "yard."  There was extra drainage rock that was put on the south side of the house, so we used that for the parking area and where the green house will go.  A lot of the dirt (and there was ALOT of it) was used to extend the west ridge along the grove.  As I said, it just looks so very different.

We had spent all day Tuesday getting the area around the house ready to be re-sculpted.  Took down my "wiggle" wood fence and transplanted the iris to the west ridge near the garden.  It may be too windy for them there so I might have to move them again.  Got all the "decorative" rocks moved.  Then, of course, they couldn't start on Wednesday.  And isn't that just the norm.  But we were able to just putter around on Wednesday and get a better idea of what we wanted and what we thought it would look like without feeling rushed.

We had to move the wren's birdhouse and the humming bird feeder.  So amazing to watch the birds fly to the exact spot in mid-air where they were.  Took a couple minutes, but they found them both.

Our garden is flourishing (see photo above).  Can hardly wait until harvest time.  The wild flowers are flourishing also, especially the lupine.  It is certainly a purple Spring.  When there is a warm breeze coming up from the canyon or when the air gets heavy just before a rain shower, the air becomes almost overwhelmingly fragrant with the scent of the wild flowers and bushes.

The new bird bath is very popular, especially with the grosbeaks.  They come in a very colorful flock of at least six to eight birds.  The males are a muted red and the females a soft yellow/green.

I have had some inquires about the "Sasquatch" photo, so here's the answer.  When I zoomed in on the picture on my computer, it was fairly obvious that it was a bear that had just got out of the pond and was shaking off.  I know that's not nearly as exciting, but the truth rarely is.

Thought for the day:  The best of all government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe