We are working on clearing out old fern fronds and other winter cleanup (since it looks like it we will have an early spring). I took this photo of the fern-less fern garden to compare to June or so when all 15-some ferns have emerged.

With tree removal and cleanup mostly complete, we acquired a magnolia and snobell to fill in along our western property line and added 6 yards of topsoil. Things will look ok come spring and really nice in seasons to come as these two mature and flower.

Had a couple of stumps ground out today.

All done. The yard and garden are a mess: muddy and strewn with twigs and sawdust. Here’s some indication of before and after. We’ll be adding deciduous trees to obscure the neighbor’s house a bit.

I finally got Trisha to agree to have more trees cleared from our back yard: 10 are planned to be taken down and another ten or so thinned. These are the two near to the house on the east and west sides of the yard.

Our Electrolux refrigerator has been a bit of a lemon since day one. A few weeks ago the ice maker quite working and error codes appeared on the display so we decided to give up on it and get a new one. So here it is: a huge Kenmore. Hopefully this one will last as long as we do.

We were getting ready to bring in the bird feeders for the night and I switched on the outside lights and glanced out the window when one of the three large fir trees on the west edge of the yard crashed down just on the edge of the patio… only about 12 feet from the house. What a sight. It took a couple of major limbs from our Japanese maple and kind of crushed the bird bath but otherwise no harm done. Whew!