Warming Up 6-10

We have had a few days of nice weather...my favorite, highs in the high 70's low 80's with a nice breeze.  Tomorrow we'll get back into the low 90's, Larry's favorite weather 90+.


We've just been puttering around with little projects.  Larry built us a couple of small benches/tables for the garden and primed and painted them with the base color so I can now make them pretty.  We bought some new plants at one of the nurseries around here and I planted several of them yesterday.  We spent time yesterday coming up with a landscape plan for the front yard, at least for the section by the deck.  We will be adding to and making changes to the flower garden that will make for less work for both of us in the long run...well we can hope.  

Russian sage

Yesterday I went on my first trail hike with Larry since the end of winter some time.  Now I have my muscles strong, my awareness of which muscles should be doing the work and it went well.  I just ended up with regular muscle soreness, but no hip pain and I wasn't all sore and crippled up the rest of the day, I'm finally starting to feel like my old self again.  We heard a whole family of coyotes yipping and yapping to each other...I could see them off in the distance and I think the parents must have returned to the den and the pups let them know they were happy to see them I guess.

No more trailer blocking the view of the meadow from
behind the shop.

While we were sitting on the deck/porch a few days ago we both looked up in time to see a coyote run by on the hill, then later that evening I saw a fox go trotting down the street...the wildlife is very busy around here.

The hole the toad was in that I mentioned last week.

his close-up

This is a magic turtle.  Our neighbor found it in the road and we set it in the garden to watch it.
It was shy and wasn't coming out, I gave it a sprinkle of water.  Larry saw one leg and its
head appear as we left the garden, which is surrounded by wire fence.   In 45 minutes
we were back in the garden and that turtle was GONE.  We looked everywhere,
then figured we would see it out of the garden somewhere...never saw it again.

Larry spotted this on his hike a few days ago.

I cropped it so you can see it better.  A yellow belly racer making like a blade of grass looking for breakfast.

Larry gave it a wide berth but I'm proud of him,
he got pictures of it for me.