On vacation

We are still in Golden Week and not going anywhere or doing anything special.  I dislike the traffic jams and crowds and so I suggested we stay at home and do yard work.  YARD WORK!  ME!  I am not much good at yard work and don't particularly enjoy it.  But it was my suggestion so I've put down my fabric and go out to weed and trim alongside Tetsu.

The first day we weeded.  I got involved with thinning the branches of an evergreen that has been looking like a large green monster in our yard.  Unfortunately I could only thin out the branches I could reach and so there's not much difference in the tree.  But I did it!  I've got the scratches all over my arm to prove it!  And I think Tetsu just liked the company I offered, it didn't really matter that I was making fantastic progress.  We also planted a few more flowers and bushes so the place is looking colorful now!

Yesterday Tetsu and I decided to start cutting back the brush that is in the forest.  It is not our forest but if it were cleaned back we could see the forest through the trees.  With clippers and hoe we got a large patch cleared but have more work cut out for us today.  Sigh.

But look!!!  We bought something impractical for our yard/forest.  A hammock!  Now how often will either of us just lay back and take a nap in a hammock?  Not in the winter.  Not when the mosquitoes start coming out.  But in this season... with the birds singing in the forest and the breeze rocking the hammock back and forth?  Let's do it! 

We hung up a cheap parachute hammock that we found at a sporting goods store.  Ta-da! Enjoying our vacation (for a whole two more days)!  That's Tetsu (obviously) reading the morning paper.

I opted for a much reread quilters novel.  Hmm.  A rare shot of our back window and yard.  Choco and her umbrella are on there on the left.  The black wire fence that was put in last summer doesn't extend all the way around the back yard (we put our budget into a new kitchen) so we just give Choco a pet as we head for the hammock. 

And from the front yard.  Way there in the back is the hammock.  Ah..  And that's the tree I was trimming...  It doesn't look very trimmed yet, does it?  A bit more weeding today and we need to get rid of those kerosene tanks in the front there.  And then the yard will be looking good... and we can go back to the working world.