Backyard at Night

Alicia and I have put a lot of work into our garden. I'm sure you've read about it on her blog and I plan on including more updates over the summer. For now, here's some pictures of our garden at night.

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This here's one of the solar lamps we've lined the garden with. They were on sale at our local hardware store, though I think the rechargeable batteries need replacing.

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Here's an overexposed photo of our view at night. At the bottom, you can see Leela, but more about her later!

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Here's a backlit photo of Alicia. I no longer have the string of blue lights hanging, but didn't it look cool?

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To finish it off, here's me!

Backyard Update

Well, my Zinnias are huge. The big news is the flowers are finally coming in. Above, you can see the first bud that will be flowering soon. Here's a shot of the garden to give you some perspective:



Yeah, they are huge. I didn't realize it when I planted Zinnias. I'm not much of a flower guy. My biggest regret is they kinda look like the weeds that surround the garden. Oh well!

Otherwise, things are good back there. Alicia and I go about once a week and enjoy the outdoors, and I feed the cat (Oreo) about every other day. Clearly, she's got another owner, as she doesn't even come by every night.



For the record, the food is on the ground because I can't pour the food without Oreo putting her head in the path of the bowl. I've gotten to the point of just pouring and letting the food land wherever. Of course, Oreo is too good to eat the food of the ground. Bah.



The ivy has doubled in size. In July, I felt stupid because the ivy just wasn't climbing up the poles I bought. Now I feel stupid because the poles will be too short.



Construction has added another full story. Alicia found the permits online and found out that the building should go up six stories. Two down, four to go I guess. It's loud about once every two weeks when they are putting the huge beams up. But now you can't even access the construction site from our backyard, which has significantly quieted down the construction. Early May, we woke up every morning to the sound of construction workers on the other side of our bedroom window. Good riddance.



The tree directly above our backyard is still my favorite, but this one has really started to look gorgeous. Ample rain and sunshine has turned the leaves into a great color, especially when back lit by a cloudy white sky.

And that's the news from Lake Wobego... er, um, the news from our back yard.

Update from the backyard

Hello! Sorry about the week off from blogging. As you know, I started teaching last week Monday. I've managed to procrastinate blogging since then. But not too much to take some photos!

This is my garden after about 5 or 6 weeks of growth. The Zinnias didn't come up in a grid (which I started), but are coming up great in places I just clumped seeds. There might be something up with the left side's soil, as the right side of the garden certainly has almost full growth. Or, it could just have to do with what was accessable when I was kneeling and spreading the seeds.

Here's another shot from the side so you can see how tall everything has grown. The highest Zinnias are around 7-10 inches. No blooming, or anything yet. But, there is this girl:

Alicia and I have been calling her (pretty sure it is a her) Oreo, but that is only because we are not very creative in our naming. I've started feeding it out of pure want for a cat. I went to the 99 cent store and picked those bowls up, bought a pound of cat chow and five fancy feasts at Walgreens, and it lasted almost two weeks now. I don't feed her every day, but everytime Alicia and I am out there. It makes Oreo very friendly. She's cute, doesn't hiss, and likes affection. We haven't figured out whether she is owned. She always comes from the same direction when I come outside, perhaps from her owner's house? She doesn't have a collar, but she is not afraid of people. I've checked outside at midnight, and she was still hanging out, so who knows?

Alicia has more photos and her thoughts on her blog, http://aliciaglaser.blogspot.com.