Backyard July 17, 2000 | Backyard Aug 9, 2004
Click either picture to enlarge

If you consider that my recent posts here have all been about
pushing the range of an Apple Airport Express adapter, you might think I spend all my time indoors at a computer screen. But in truth, its just part of the things that keep me busy …

Of course, we have the backyard pond to maintain, and about 18 very tall trees … recently reduced by one. Thats the problem with living among old tall trees – the shade is wonderful, but even with regular watering and deep root feeding, they only live for so long. And in the 4 years we’ve lived in this home, we’ve had 4 large trees cut down. Its troubling, but on each occasion we found a huge amount of decay hidden within the trunk, so its actually a blessing to take the trees down gently at our pace, instead of waiting for them to crash down in winter, loaded with ice.

As you can see from the pictures, the last homeowner let the yard go to seed – so I’ve spent a lot of time clearing weeds and undregrowth from a lot of the yard. Somebody in the past had even filled in the little pond years ago – but I show how I got the pond set up in pictures and pages here

Its a lot of work, but its very pleasant to go sit in the chairs on a sunday morning with a nice cup of coffee and watch the birds play in the trees. Very soothing – like a vacation in our own backyard.