Diesel Celebrities

There have been celebrities across the street. And no, I'm not talking about Tom Cruise. My boys have been glued to the windows on the front of the house for a good while (a week? longer?) watching the demolition, expansion and re-construction of our neighbor's driveway and stone retaining wall.

This is the sort of thing I never imagined getting excited about in all my life. I don't personally get shivers up my spine about the fact that a "real live dump truck" is right across the street but how do you resist feeling a thrill deep in your gut when watching your kids feel like this?

Man, reciprocal emotions are real and also very good. Just the thought makes me smile.

So, there I was, for days...watching a diesel powered this and that smash cement up and then a dump truck pour out a load of something or other while my little boys press their hands and noses against the windowpanes and sigh avidly. So very, very funny and yet happy to see what makes their little hearts go pitter patter, especially when it is so clearly their own taste and not mine reflected.

I love me some blossoming children. :) Might be time to check out our local Big Rig Day the next time one comes through the area. Anyone know when the next one is?

Moss and Brick

Time for a little bragging on my partner. A has been working with me on a strange little vision I had for a particular corner of our yard.We have this nook against the back of the house where the stone foundation creates two walls around a sheltered little garden spot. When we bought the house it was already a special feeling place.

One day while digging there, my spade hit a little china statue of St. Francis, resting in the black dirt and now he sits in the top of my china cabinet (probably some Catholic sacrilege to dig him out from under the roses and bring him in but I am none the wiser for having done it). The moss grows green and moist here and there were ferns of several varieties that didn't live anywhere else on the property. It was green and lush and the grass was even usually happy. I decided it needed to be a slightly enclosed, circular kind of contemplation garden. The kind of place where you could bring a good book and have a good cry, or a little boy could be alone with his favorite Matchbox cars which all have secret names. Eventually I want to enclose it quite a bit and have the flowers and things inside it be special lush haven. Someday there's going to be a little burbling fountain and a bench or chair for resting but for now...there's the first amazing, real piece.

Wall in progress, still a little sod on the right to be lifted and filled under.

Some of the old bricks we found on our property that got worked into the sides.

A built me a brick retaining wall, making the lawn a perfect little circle. The bricks will age and the moss will move in and sometime very soon I'll lay a set of steps. I'm rather in love with the effect. A was very energetic about the project, peeling back the sod and shoveling good topsoil underneath to raise it all the a level plain, morning after early morning before work. I am very impressed. Not bad for a guy with no masonry experience, eh? I think its all pretty magical.

Tah Dah!!!!! The finished beauty...minus steps.