Lovely in Springtime (06-20-11)

Here are some photos of the house at its best, when everything around is in bloom...

A Day of Work (12-31-10)

I spent all morning and most of the afternoon trying to get some yard work done before there is another freeze. Lots of work today: I turned the dirt over in the garden area, to discourage the weeds from settling down for the winter. I stacked up away from the house all the wood logs Gary had split and left near the carport. I carried a lot of the wood debris left behind the studio (aka shed) by previous contractors to the side of the trailer, for a future trip to the dump. Valérie and Julia brought all the trimmed rose branches from the rose garden area and put them in the trailer, with the rest of the yard debris. Then, I went down to the rose garden and trimmed half of the lavender shrubs at the front of the property, and the big hydrangea near the front porch.

One of the pipes at the back of the house behind the laundry room may have burst: there was a long trail of ice along the side of the house, not a good sign...

On a positive note, the outside of the studio is finished, as far as the missing bats are concerned. My friend Julie Olson gave me the phone number of a carpenter who seems to know what he's doing (a nice change, since the last 10 months have been been a wild ride). He worked pretty fast, with no gloves on. Yet, it was so cold in the morning, I couldn't even feel my fingers inside my gloves...

Ideas for a Fence (11-18-10)

I drew this sketch to try to get a visual idea of what a fence would look like in the lower part of the property. Right now, there is no fence because the old fence erected in the early 1980s was all rotted out and had to be taken out. Unfortunately, there is just not a way to get a new fence at this time, for lack of funds...

Fence idea.

The House in the 1980s (03-10)

When we moved in the house, we found an envelope the previous owner had left to our attention on the kitchen counter. Inside, some papers pertaining to the history of the Rupert house (the original owners), but also this photo of the house and the property in the 1980s. The rear part of the property has been sold off, including the small structure with a tree in front (demolished to build a house). We still have the large structure with a lean-to behind the house. The oak tree in front of the house is still there, as are the other trees in the photo.