Before and Afters

Tony poses in his French Foreign Legion stance. When he runs, which is ALWAYS, his ears flap and usually one gets stuck in the thrown back position. Very debonair.


I took an early morning walk, taking pictures of the late August garden to remind myself in the spring about what was a success and what needs changing. Above is an early view of the house, April 2008 when we still had a yard...with something resembling grass and just a border of woodchips. Now it is majorly garden, no grass and lots more woodchips.
Seven redbuds and five arborvitaes line the pond and six huge ornamental grasses fill in the empty spaces. We now have the deck and the tiny burning bushes planted to disguise the AC unit are now mature.






The pond is low even tho we've had constant rains this summer. But in this shot from 2008, it is a bit higher.  Dave was adding rock around the edge to keep the banks from eroding. It certainly did the trick.
Speaking of erosion, this area that we call the dam was all clay and we added store-bought black mulch to cover it and then planted liriope. What a joke. I thought it might fill in. Not like the English ivy, which certainly has. No erosion to worry about now.


Dave just left to get more mulch before it gets too hot. No rain today...they say.
++++++
We have moved almost everything out of my old studio and into the living room or the loft and none of it is usable for the duration of the remodeling. I confine myself to my chair in the bedroom, watching Netflix on my laptop or HGTV for the highs of the great room reveals at the end of shows.  Hopefully I will hear from our contractor about the starting date, which I pray is Monday, but who knows? In the meantime I can continue to knit and read, but not much else. I am picking out paint, light fixtures, and possibly new 'old fart chairs'. I'd like to get Dave to reduce the amount of mismatched furniture he has collected in his current room, but I must be patient.
Patience is the watchword for the duration.