First Blooms

The roses in the back yard have, finally, begun blooming. One of the varieties is known as "Pink Knock Out" and is a shrub rose variety. The great thing about these are they are disease resistant and prolific bloomers. The only reason I know the exact variety is I found the metal tag at the base of one of the bushes while weeding.

Pink Knock Out 'Radcon'

Pink Knock Out 'Radcon'

 The second variety is unknown but more in the category of a Tea Rose.

Besides the roses, the Columbines are blooming quite nicely, although, they aren't in the traditional color schemes. I'll have to take a few pictures of those, as well...

Two Weeks

Well, it's been two full weeks, since we moved into our home. We're still, occasionally, thinking we'll have to get up very early one of these mornings and drive back to Austin. It just doesn't seem completely real, yet.

There has been lots going on around the house, mainly outside.  I finally had the opportunity to prune the rose bushes this past week and they have responded quite well.  Within the next week, the first blooms should occur.  There are many small stumps from old bushes that were cut to the ground within the past few years. A lot of time was spent digging them out so the little green shoots stop emerging from their Winter hiatus.

One small step towards making improvements began this afternoon.  Earlier this week, after a lot of time researching outdoor lighting, I finally purchased new lights.  And, "a lot of time" means several months. The goal is to stay with the same period and style of the 1920's.  Thankfully, I have online access to digitized versions of hardware and lighting catalogs from the early 20th century.  I had my Wife make the final choice, after narrowing it down to a few different styles--She, definitely, made the best choice! The lights were delivered late this afternoon and I, immediately, opened up one of the boxes and installed the new light on our front porch.  It looks even better than expected and looks like it's been there for 91 years.

First Weekend

The past few days have been at full speed.  After pulling into the driveway with our moving truck at 2:30pm on a Friday, we managed to fully unload the contents and return the truck by 4:20pm.

I have to admit, I was aghast when we initially arrived to see a lawn more befitting for cattle grazing.  The recent late snowstorm, with it's heavy, wet snow resulted in an enormous number of large tree limbs breaking off century old trees.  A few of those ended up in our front yard from the neighbor's tree and many more in our back yard from our own mature White Poplar.

I spend the entire day on Saturday mowing, trimming, edging, pulling weeds,  and using my chainsaw to cut up the downed limbs. Compared to the day before, the result is more appealing.

While I was immersed in yard work, my Wife managed to unpack everything. It can't be said enough how much she accomplished in one day.  And, thanks to her, we can relax without looking at boxes strewn throughout the house.

It still hasn't sunk in that we won't be leaving in a few days, like we did on previous visits.  We are beginning to focus on the upcoming remodel of the kitchen and bathroom. The first purchase has been made for the kitchen--a gas range.  Since it was such a great deal, we couldn't let it go.

Our to-do list for the house is growing both with minor things to do this month and the more long-term items that need to be completed before Winter sets in later this year.  We realize it's necessary to adjust the perspective to a true four season climate from the previous one, which consisted of Summer and what I called "some other season"...

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