I hate it when my family’s gone. It screws up my sleeping process. No bathtime, no Elmo video, no group toothbrush… I end up watching two hours of stupid TV (I guess that’s redundant) and doing blog posts at 2:AM.

Well, anyway, took some pictures today during a break in the rain:

Da ladies are getting some lovely breasts on them. Another moderately pathetic activity when your family’s not home is to play with your chickens for a half an hour. Feed them worms and watch them fight over them. Wheee! Then watch three or four really stupid shows on television and flip constantly between them in hopes of deriving one good show’s worth of value from them.

The Girls’ new digs are almost complete. Note the stylish window I jammed in as an afterthought. Not too keen on the whole Hogan’s Heroes look of the fencing, but, hey, it was already here, lying around in piles. That didn’t look too cool either. Having a little trouble the “roof” of the coop. I think it needs it for both sun and rain protection, but the tarp is contributing to a general feeling of truck on blocks, freedom is not free bumper sticker, mullet-haired rurality that I’m not completely stoked about.

Trying to get the strawbs under control a little bit. Made this bed out of galvanized flashing. Last year they spread all over the place, which isn’t terrible, but I feel conflicted stepping on them even when they are growing somewhere I don’t want them. Prolific little buggers.

The front yard is coming along slowly… doesn’t look like much, but I sure prefer it to the boxwood hedge and swampy lawn.

Cherry blossoms on the weeping cherry in back. Very pretty and quite happy since its liberation from the cherry laurels.

The Venus grape demonstrating my new found courage in grape pruning. Given that all my neighbors’ grapevines could reach to the moon and back if untangled (one grows completely up his pine tree and over my fence), I hope I’m doing this right. Last time I tried pruning grapes… well… let us just say that the landlord no longer has grapes to worry about.

The grape mangler strikes again! This time it’s a Van Buren (probably, I sort of forget), and I’m going for a slightly different approach.

Last (because I’m getting sleepy) but not least is the Asian pear tree.

Wait, no, this is last…

Don’t know that I’ve taken a picture of the BoyShak since we got the cedar on it. It looks very nice with the camellia, don’t you think? Still don’t know what it’s for. Here’s a picture from last September, when I started it…

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