in the garden

Not too much time spent on actual gardening today but a lot of time spent in the garden.

First a lot of time spent admiring my amazing treehouse. Steve is building it for my birthday and I'm so thrilled -- I cannot even describe how overwhelmingly excited I am about it. I went out there to watch him work for a while and to wander around on the platform looking out the overlook. *sigh of contentment* Unfortunately the roof design is being slightly reworked. He had started last winter with tar paper and then cedar shingles. But some furry little critters decided that they needed a comfy home and chewed holes in the tar paper as well as the heavy canvas tarp (seriously, the tarp looks demented at this point with odd shaped holes all over it). So the rest of the roof will not have tar paper on the theory that if they're going to eat it why put it there. The treehouse is going to be open on the sides so weather will get in anyway. I can't wait till it's done. Perhaps when it is completed S can take a picture with her digital camera for me to upload.

Next was wandering around the garden "planning." We have a l-a-r-g-e garden in the back yard and it's all on a h-u-g-e hill. I can't keep up with it anymore. I also have the front garden, the rock garden, the fruit garden and the orchard/side garden. It's all too much. So the back yard is getting ripped out and redone. There will, I think, be three beds at the top (much smaller than they are now) and two small terraces. The rest will be returned to grass and/or a natural state. This is going to take a long time to accomplish, probably years since it's really big, but at least we have some idea of what we are doing with it.

I have someone coming to look at one section that we are ripping out to tell me how much he would charge to clear it and prepare the ground for a cover planting. *gulp* I'm not anticipating anything cheap, but I'll keep you posted.