Out of the Woods, Part I

Here you see Ian Reid and his helper Stephen hard at work late yester-day taking down two enor-mous conifers that blocked off our front lawn from the side garden next to our front door. He will come back soon to take down and cart away the overgrown rock garden in that area too. But for now, we at least have more light coming into the sitting/dining area.

You can see by the "before" and "after" photos that these two conifers were huge. They were stunting, drawfing, and contorting any plants that had the audacity to try to share the same space. We actually lost a cotoneaster and a smaller conifer because they had become hopelessly deformed in the shadow of the two behemoths.

Ian and Stephen were back this morning to finish getting the roots out, to clean up and smooth over the area they had worked in, and to cart away all the remaining debris. We have all winter to think about how we'd like to use these spaces now that we can actually see them! All sorts of possibilities have, literally, opened up to us.

This morning while Don was at golf, Trish Hamilton came over and I taught her the process I had used for making the mini-quilts for Karen's handbag. Trish thought it would be a good technique for making book covers. I wish I had taken a photo of her finished project before she took it away, but you'll have to trust me when I say it is beautiful. She's going to find just the right sized and shaped book to put it on and then I'll get a photo.