Lots of progress!

Well, it was a lovely, long weekend in the mountains. The weather was perfect, except for a nasty storm early Sunday morning about 4AM. We took advantage of several days without rain to get some of the staining done (while all the neighbors put up hay!). So this is a long post with LOTS of pictures!

First of all, here's the moon at sunset on Saturday night...

And here's sunrise on Sunday morning, after the storm....just rolling off to the East.
With all the rain, the pastures look lovely and tall - we have an incredible crop of yellowbells this year!

This little fella is my alarm clock. He starts up a daylight - which is about 5:45 AM right now - with "FeeBee....FeeBee....FeeBee". Can you guess what kind of bird he is?
That's right, he's a Phoebe!!!

The first project we tacked was staining the back porch to match the house....unfortunately, I didn't get a very good shot.....

Then we tackled the side steps.......haven't done the porch itself yet.Next, came the BIG project - the screened porch area. Tom was very brave. Those of you that know me well, know there was NO WAY I was going up that ladder! I worked on the spindles!And here is the finished product - ready for screening! And it's about time - there are only about a million bees, hornets, flies and other creepy crawlies on the porch all day long.....

I also planted some flowers in an old wine barrel that we cut in half.

And of course Suzie supervised....

while Sister stood guard!

We also ordered a storage shed for the lawn mower, etc. Doesn't it just match the house perfectly???