Summer

Yesterday we had an arborist come to give an estimate for removing the dead ash tree from the front of our property:

 While I do love its Gothic-horror look, it's going to come down sooner or later, and I'd rather it not do so on me or a passing car. I took the opportunity to ask him some questions about some of the other trees, and learned that what we'd thought of as a very large bush, at the right in the photo, is actually CT's state tree, the mountain laurel. Its less-than-stellar appearance right now is apparently due to last year's drought, since that can take a year to show its effects. And it just occurred to me now that we have a mountain laurel...on Laurel Hill Road! :-)

Spring already seems to be over, and summer is here! At the pond, we've welcomed back the turtles (natives + adopted), the frogs (which are insanely loud at night), the herons, and discovered that the goldfish the previous owner chucked in on a whim are still in there, in the deeper water. Yesterday I pulled the rowboat (christened the S.S. Fat Man, in honor of JTD's unfulfilled desire for a boat) out of the shed and took it back down to the pond to fulfill the picturesque image that we saw when we first looked at the house. I don't know when we'll actually try going in the pond in it, though; when spring arrived, so did the Canada geese, and the pond is now home to at least one breeding pair and the four goslings they brought out for the first time yesterday. Geese: we don't like them. They poop, a lot (and if I thought two was bad, six is sooooo much worse), and they're really unpleasant sounding. Honestly I would hate them less, despite the poop, if they didn't have such a terrible honk! We get to hear it on take-off, landing, and when they're feuding with other geese (ie, frequently). Sigh. Damned wildlife. 

Said wildlife have put the kibosh on our plans to have a raised bed garden here like we did at Concord Street, at least this year. Sean's been too exhausted by the end of the school year to think about it, and we would have to do a lot of strategizing, and building, to create a garden fortress that can withstand the "locals." Sean thought maybe we could just use simple netting, but we've got everything from groundhogs to deer to rabbits - we'd need Fort Knox. We think the previous owner was planning a garden, because he arranged a bunch of cinderblocks into a U-shape in the backyard, so my plan is to use the cinder blocks as the base for posts and create an enclosure around the entire thing, then we can build at least two raised beds, maybe even three, inside it! 

But that's not a "first season of homeownership" type of plan. Mostly I'm just trying to keep up - keeping the garden beds with their frankly spectacular plantings weeded and watered, setting up the dozen or so peony plants with cages and struts to keep them from slumping over, mastering the beast that is our John Deere...the list goes on. Admittedly, working from home 3 days per week has meant that I've had a lot of flexibility to get things done! We've had the expected string of contractors, too. We just had an electrical outlet added to the back patio to run the Traeger smoker Linda gave us for Christmas, and Damon, the electrician, quoted about $3k if we ever wanted to run electrical down to the pond to power the (still-missing) pump and fountain. We had additional insulation added to the attic and above the garage, free courtesy of a program subsidized by Eversource. We're having the gutters replaced in a couple of weeks. One of Linda's friends, a landscaper, is going to look at our small grading project on the side of the house. We've been extremely fortunate in only have a few hiccups so far in home ownership, but the projects certainly do present themselves! So yeah, no Fort Knox of tomatoes this year, just a few pots on the patio: basil, mint, parsley, and oregano. 

Also, I bought a hammock and I fucking love it. 

The world feels so much more hopeful as we move into summer, thanks to the vaccines. Obviously it's not over yet, and more terrible shit happens in our country, and around the world, literally every day...but to be able to have Jen and Vinny over with the boys, no masks, and to not be a little bit nervous to pick up baby Leo and give him a hug? It's incredible. I'm headed up to their house tomorrow to babysit, while Sean attends ND's graduation in full "wizard robes." And then Sunday will mark twelve years since we got married! Damn! Time flies when you're...becoming an adult?