Summer!

Hooray - I got my Mums planted! Here is the before picture - the barrels looked nice earlier in the summer, but the pink spiky things didn't bloom for long and the marigolds had kind of thinned out. I moved the bigger plants to a different part of the garden, regrouped the marigolds and planted a couple Mums.

Here's the "after" picture. Don't you just love the autumn colors? :) I was even good and mulched the barrels...now maybe they won't dry out so fast. I really don't know why I've never done that before...

I also spent a little time recently working on the pond hole. Now, this takes a little explanation - you see, my Dad really wants to have a small pond and waterfall in our backyard. So, probably about 5-6 years ago, we started digging a hole for a pond. Well, we didn't finish the hole or get the necessary equipment, so for a few years, we simply had a random hole in our backyard. It was a convenient spot to dump weeds, brush and whatever else we didn't want to lug a few yards further back to the treeline. It was also a convenient spot to break the legs of unsuspecting people wandering through our yard. See below for said pond hole:

Last summer I wrangled my brother into helping me do some more work on it. (Both of my brothers are excellent diggers - sometime I'll have to describe the Tunnel Incident!) We made some progress, but...well, this is about how it stayed for another year - with the minor cosmetic addition of a thriving colony of crabgrass.

Now we're getting somewhere! We have random piles of granite around our yard - we're in the Granite State, after all - and I spent a recent afternoon picking away at the infamous pond hole! Mind you, this isn't going to be the actual pond; this is simply the backdrop for it. Maybe eventually we'll actually dig a hole in the middle of this area and fill it with water - so that we have a pond to go in our pond hole! :D But at least it's finally starting to look like something...right?

Random question: can anyone tell me what kind of artwork this is? Does this style of painting have a specific name? I might try my hand at this style if I can find more examples to study.

Finally, be sure to check out my Dad's online woodworking shop - even if you've been on it before, make sure you check back because I've been adding new things periodically! Here's one of the pens I just listed a couple weeks ago; I'll be putting up a bunch more treenware soon.

Have a spectacular week!!! :D