Landscaping our property – The Beginning

A little while ago we had a landscape architect (Sherry Lizotte) come over and create a “master plan” with us for how our property might actually look someday.

We took those plans and worked with a landscaper (Glen Warren) to figure out what we wanted to address now and what would wait for (probably much) later.

Having the overall plan was actually suggested by Glen when we first talked with him. Our original intention had been to just “spruce up” the place. Essentially taming some of the more unruly plants and replacing others. But as our aspirations grew, we all soon realized that there would likely be a lot of wasted effort if we didn’t work according to a larger plan.

I took before pictures of everything except the windows at the back of the house (where the gym and Mich’s office are situated). Going back through my old pictures I find I’ve NEVER taken pictures of that area – weird.

Anyway I thought I’d chronicle some of the changes. Let me know what you think.

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To start off, here is a picture of the front of the house just before the work began.

 

 

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As a contrast, the bushes looked like this when we first arrived here 10 years ago.

 

 

Continuing on with the front yard, you can see pretty clearly how we’ve allowed things to outgrow the area. I trimmed the bushes most years but was not “garden savvy” enough to know how much I could cut back all these plants without harming them.

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And Here is the backyard showing the shed area.

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a few funny videos

My 2 year old (actually 1 year, 10 months, 22 days, MARC) is really into watching internet videos of monkeys, babies and dogs.  Here are a few that I have come across.  Amazing? Funny?  Crude?  You be the judge. 

I picture a young Marc as the narrator of the baby video…

 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7066247223722526488&q=monkey

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8104288782790416992&q=monkey

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=348371717561530893&q=monkey

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6221820289188391331&q=monkey

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7051033343402010034&q=babies
 

Big Bug in backyard

This is the second time I’ve seen this behemoth. It looks like a “stretch-bee” and is maybe 3 times larger than a normal bumble bee.
Here are some pictures, the “little” wasps beside it are actually normal size (about 3/4 – 1 inch). This thing is noticeable. They are feeding on the sugar water dripping from our hummingbird feeder. We’ve since replaced the feeder with one that doesn’t drip…

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