A beautiful weekend

No pictures, today. But Saturday and Sunday were the Perfect Weather, not very warm (except on the South-facing deck, where it was more than warm) and no humidity. Saturday I planted a bunch of violas, and a few lupines on the hillside, and then Doug and I planted the entire Hummingbird Garden from Audubon Workshop. They sent me a catalogue and I was impressed by their prices, and then I was impressed by their packaging. It is not conservative of plastic, but the tender little plants arrived in really good shape and look like they will do well. I don't usually buy selections of plants someone else has thought out, but this could be a good one.

Later Saturday, Doug thoughtfully planted three azaleas, and I put planks along the edge of a half-realized flowerbed outside the Loom Room. This is the room that needed a little sill work? the one that ended up getting torn down and rebuilt, slightly _inside_ its old footprint so (airy laugh) the walls would be on, rather than around, the concrete slab?

There was once an above-ground swimming pool there, so one had a breathtaking view of the side of the pool out the sliding glass door. I am not a pool person, and this is NEW HAMPSHIRE, for heaven's sake, where the official frost free dates are mid-May to Mid-September. Anyway, the pool is gone, leaving a 17-foot circular pad of sand and gravel. I am hoping to stick large flat rocks into the sand and gravel and have an elegant courtyard with a fire-pit in the middle. Possibly little tufts of thyme and chamomile among the flags. Beyond the pad and the end of the deck is a potentially beautiful view, down across the seep field and farther down into a meadow bordered by a stone wall (this was made visible when we cut down the row of sumac before Easter). It's a huge improvement over the side of the pool.

Part of the removal of the pool has been the removal of a chunk of the deck. It used to run along the front of the house and around to the side where the pool was. We took a big piece of it off last year, pausing to make the timbers into a compost bin and a rather nice cedar bench (on which one sits, enjoying the firepit). But there's still framework that Doug, who is an excellent Clerk of the Works, refused to dismantle until he had some concrete footings to support the remaining bit of deck at that end.

Yesterday he dug pits and poured concrete, whicle I demolished another bit of of deck and made an easy passage across the deck to the courtyard. I do love working with crowbars and having permission to hit things with a small sledgehammer, repeatedly. We had not realized what a differenc eit would make; now you can see the courtyard from the far and of the deck, so I ties two previously unrealted places together and makes it nearly possible to walk around the house without breaking your ankle. Some work still needed there.

So after that I planted three different varieties of geranium (not pelargonium. In the pots they were little 6" mounds of interestingly divided foliage; I think they will eventually sprawl all over the place and have various colors of pink-through-blue flowers. I originally intended to put them in a messy wooded area outside my bathroom window, but after edging the flowerbed outside the loom room, which was empty, and staring at the hillside, which will probably always be a mess, I decided to get them planted sooner rather than later. If they get too floppy then I will move them.