A Few Shots of the New House

No, not inside yet, sorry!  

Here are some scenes from outside, so you know I have my work cut out for me. 

Here I am looking at the front door.  Can you see the damaged hedge???

The ones on the right have been dying for a while, and it has spread to the first one on the left. 

A better view. 

I think these are coming out.  I am not even sure how to do it, to make sure we get all the roots. 

Hostas are going in in their stead, as a memorial to Brandon and Joel, Keith's sons, and 

to my brother and sister. 

I'm going to get some advice at the nursery. 

I do subscribe to the advice that you are best to wait a year before doing 

anything in your new "garden"... but gosh... these hedges that must be manicured 

don't do it for me. 

This damage is in the front yard, just in front of the porch.  I am not sure if it was from the two big dogs that lived here (one was a mastiff, one a weim) who ran free. 

It almost looks as if water lines were dug up at one time. 

I'll be filling in these slight holes and re-seeding. 

This is the west side of the house... there is a drainage hose snaking through there that is 

not connected to anything... I think it blew in, and I'm going to take it out.  Where the yellow flag is laying there is a gas line.  

So you see, I don't have much space to work with here.  

I like the grass... and we'll see how the mounded over grass looks this year... but the barberry bushes are out of control.  Their trunks are pretty big, so I am going to take a better picture, and take it to the nursery and see what they say.  I envision phlox and other flowers growing in here. 

And look what I found away down on the very end, at the corner of the house!  Tulips, that someone planted long ago.  I was so glad to see them! 

I'll take some pictures of the back of the house, where I am VERY limited because of the septic tank and it's mound.  

Here, however, I'm looking out at the front yard.... there are four small trees in it, and I am dying to see what they are.  They are just budding out. 

And here I've turned back towards the front of the house again... and you can see that we have a problem area where the side retaining wall meets the fence.  Yesterday, a Big Black Dog appeared in our fenced portion of the yard suddenly.  He is very elderly... and we think he must have jumped down from the wall onto an additional retaining wall you can JUST see on the left, where the fence starts, and down into the yard.  We are not sure that Lilly can jump UP... but we are going to put a section of picket there so that no dogs can get in, in the future... and no little grandchildren can fall over the wall, which is quite deep at it's highest, by the house.  

I wanted to apologize today for something I said the other day, and I think Sandy from Oklahoma Transient called me out on it... 

I mentioned that I had always considered my animals as "pets" and not "livestock" and that I always treated them as such and really took care of them.  Well... a good farmer...even a good "hobby" farmer... takes care of his livestock the right way, if he wants them to be productive for him.  I didn't mean to demean anyone, and I think I was just trying to say that to me, they were never a means to make money or produce meat., etc., but were my hobby.  A hobby that I broke my neck over keeping well over a series of very hard winters!   I know all of you have gone through the same thing, and are still going through it... as I saw Michaele's picture of snow in Nebraska again this week!  

Kudos to all of you! 

I'm working up to pictures of the house, don't worry... and I'll throw in some pictures of the inside of the OLD house as well. 

Here's the sturdy, beautiful deck Keith built at the old house... and where I had so many planters last year. 

He mentioned in passing one day that I needed to "get rid of " the planters.  HAHAHAHAHA.  

Hysterical laughter here.  The green one is going somewhere in the front of this house... and I'm finding homes here for the others, I'll show you my plan tomorrow.  

Now I'm going to go read a few blogs!  Tonight Keith will lock up the birds for me, and I'm going to go watch Grandson Jax in his play at school!