These Busy Times

Spring for us has involved beautiful weather and lots of projects! It's hard to believe we bought our house a year (and seven days) ago. Which is also scary, when I consider that I *just* cleaned out the clear "crystal" knobs on our outdated sink fixture. It was so easy, too -- so why did it take a year?

Anyway, we've also been able to enjoy the full beauties of Spring on our little property, which has been a delight!

Most of our projects have been in the great outdoors. Like transplanting the enormous Indian Hawthorne bush that was totally obscuring the prettiest window on the front of our house (and we only have three, so that's a big deal.) And of course, the three foot circle we marked out to transplant it to was filled with pine tree roots, so Pablo had to break out the axe. I tried it, but fifteen strokes later, I had made as much progress as he had with a single stroke!

Our transplant project led us to destroy a few feet of rotten tree trunk, which the previous owners had decorated with a rather disturbing set of facial features. By doing so, we accidentally evicted this vibrant little fellow:

He was absurdly shy (I have a feeling he doubted my motives, but I didn't find him in the least appetizing!), so I resorted to my long distance lens to record his likeness. Yes, I was snapping photos while Pablo was doing the hard work... *ahem*

But I did prune the roses and jasmine -- the latter had gone completely wild, wrapping itself into long, fragrant ropes. It's more subdued and much less attractive now, but next year we can train it into more acceptable routes.

Yes, these are busy times -- and we have a Little Man to provide mandatory breaks every few hours (I keep telling him there's plenty of food in the 'fridge if he's hungry...). And while such times may not be good for the blog, they are certainly good for hearth and health!