Project and Consequences

Remember our newest project (click here)? A large portion of it got done on Saturday.

Doesn't it look different (from the picture in the other post)? It reminds me of a public park. You know, usable space surrounded by woods. I have big plans for that area, including a fence for the dog and a deck for the husband and a treehouse for the girls. I've already had a benefit from the new space, a bluebird couple has been spending a TON of time there. They're so pretty. If I had a better camera I'd show you, but they don't come close enough to where I am with my little camera to get a good shot. Also, this morning, the goldfinch, the boy one, was back at the feeder by the kitchen window. Yay! Birds!

On Sunday, I spent time clearing away the vines and brush left on the hill, where I'm hoping we'll be able to grow some grass eventually, but I got distracted by some buried treasure.

Those are some of my great-grandmother's iris bulbs. A decade ago, Moomie and I planted a bunch of them in front of the house, and Moomie took the extras and stuck them in the hill around back. I don't think they ever bloomed, and eventually they got over-grown by a miserable vine and some honeysuckle. I remembered they were somewhere near there but didn't know for certain where until I was clearing away the brush. Now they have their own little bed around the side of the house, which was occupied by a puny boxwood 10 years ago.

Sadly, all of the treasure I got from the hill wasn't so pleasant. I knew there was poison ivy there (Lulu says 'itchy ivus') and I thought I was careful, but the irises were such a nice surprise that I think I might have actually been careless because there is now a giant itchy spot on my right arm right where my arm bends and a smaller itchy spot in the same place on my left arm and itchy spots on my neck and shoulders around the collar of my shirt and also a little one down the right side of my face by my eye. Sigh. Itchy ivus sucks. I've been hitting the bottle pretty hard today...

Still, though, you can see all the way to the creek (should be cool to watch from a safe distance when it rains), and last night I saw a rabbit!