No DirecTV for me

**an update**
The senior tech came and said that we can get the satillite connection off to the side of our house.
So...disregard anything you are about to read.

We have too many trees!

That's what the DirecTV man said when he came to install our satellite yesterday.

Too many trees and we can't get a signal.

I wanted to cry.

Okay, not really cry--that would have been dumb  (crying over tv)

But, I was really disappointed for a short while.

I want HDTV.  High Def.

I don't care about a gazillion channels....I just want them to look really good when I do watch them.

Our house sits facing north.

The satellites are in the south.

Our house is not at an angle at all.  It sits directly north and the trees are directly south-- in the way.

On one  hand I'm okay with it.  I don't want to be tied to my TV. 

Neither does the Handyman.( But he was looking forward to the free season of the NFL package.)

We don't want to be constant TV watchers.

On the other  hand....ARE YOU FRICKING SERIOUS???!!

WE CAN'T GET DIRECTV!!

Everyone around us has satellite TV!!

I live in the high desert...I'm NOT cutting down a tree.

**for the sake of full disclosure, the TV man was very nice.  I might not  have liked what he had to say, but he also said,  he didn't want to lock us into a contract and then we couldn't get most of the channels.

Fair enough.

They are going to send out a 2nd opinion man tho.

**and--my trees look very overgrown, as does everything in my backyard.  It's been a busy and hectic summer.

River Rafting with my parents (and all their friends)

Trips up north.

Trips to the cabin.

Trips to California.

Ugh.

This isn't even pretty anymore.

I'm still not cutting them down.

This is 'the' tree, that they can't get around.

I just threw these in, because I was walking by...

dying sunflowers.

And the two big trees come together in the middle almost.

and there is that little hill or inlcine they are up on, so they end up being higher than my house.

HELP!  It's really overgrown.
I need to trim and prune and clean things up.

Taken from 'up on the hill'

oh..and the Handyman blows the leaves down from the rocks and rock garden each week.

Silly Poplar trees lose leaves all year it seems.

Wait until they REALLY start falling!!

I have Japanese lanterns hanging in a tree.

They look pretty at night.

This is 'the' tree again.  Taken from up on the hill.

It has  a horrible, big, fat trunk.

and you can't really see....but I have some chairs there, with alittle flower pot and I sit there and read sometimes. 

This is  pretty much my view, looking down into the yard, when I am reading up there.

It's hard to see....but there sits the Handyman at the patio table, reading his book.



Even at the tip top of our roof, the satellite cannot get a signal thru the trees.!

I wonder what the 2nd opinion man is going to say?

It's about time!

Finally! Warm weather ... or... How we spent our Father's Day.



The thing about warm weather in Northern  Nevada is, that it hits fast and hard. 
We had snow on June 3rd. It was kind of a freak thing, but we had a really, really wet and cold spring.
It's been hard on everyone.....(farmers, ranchers, lumber yards, nurseries, and most of all ME!!)
And today it is 90 degrees.

I've neglected the Big Backyard Blog for quite some time.  (remember when I was going to take a picture a week to show how my  yard changes?  I gave up on that since everything was so brown and awful looking for so long)  But all of the sudden everything in the High Desert is green again, so....   time to garden while we can.

The Handyman was putting in an arbor for me. He will not be happy that I'm posting pictures of him working in the yard.   He doesn't look too happy, does he?
This is/was the entrance to my vegetable garden of past years, but sadly we are not doing veggies this year.  A few tomato plants is all.  And some Herbs.
This spot gets too much shade now and it is the middle of June...our growing season is less than 90 days at this point, so.... ??  It's sad tho.

The view from where I sat...
towards the Handyman:

I planted some honeysuckle by it so it will grow and tail up and over the arbor someday.

looking up the yard...the hill?  Whatever you want to call my backyard...I just turned and was looking at our yard from a different perspective.
Up the hill:

Then I needed a couple of rose bushes planted along the fence, but we have horrible roots all over the yard, from the Poplar Trees.  The roots are so bad, the Handyman had to take an axe to them.  No worries....that won't kill the Poplars.

We lost at tree last year in this spot, so it looks strange and odd and sad to us.  Hey...maybe it's the roots from the old  locust tree.

He has an axe in his hand...it's just so fast, you can't see it.

My fear is that the axe blade will fly off and embed itself into my skull.  You can breath a sigh of relief tho...it didn't happen.  This time.

It's a good thing too, because I want to link this to  Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.  , Garden Tuesday at Sidewalk Shoes and   Blooming Tuesday at MsGreen "thumb".

I hate Old Man Winter.

 The first full day of spring.

Old Man  Winter cannot let go.

He's like an old man  hanging on, not wanting to let youth (spring) take over.

I hate Old Man Winter.

Oh sure, at first he woos you and seduces you with his pristine demeanor and it's quite exciting. There are sparkles and bells and trees with lights.  Sleigh rides and parties with spiked hot chocolate.  Silver and tinsel and grand music.

Laughter and joy and smiles.

He treats you to good food and lots of it.

But then soon....he turns a cold shoulder on you.  His moods are dark and bone chilling cold. He keeps you away from friends by demanding that you stay inside.  Because of him, you are isolated.

He freezes your toes and sometimes he can be said to abuse you--I mean, you did slip on that ice at Walmart, didn't you?

Suddenly he begins to run hot and cold...he's so unpredictable.  From one day to the next you don't know what mood he will take.

Just when you think it's safe to go outside again, he hits you hard with the wind and rain and the sleet and yes....snow.

He shows his power over you!

He's not quite ready to give you up.

I hate him.  But I used to love him.  And if he comes around again in say,  9 months, I'll probably  be delighted to see him again.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder.... so hurry up and leave Old Man Winter!!!

The Big Backyard  (and front yard) today:

Right outside my patio door.  There is  a rake lying out there in the yard. And an upside down lawn chair  (you can just see the feet).  We had had a wind storm a few days ago.

From my front porch.  Yesterday we had no snow in the yard!

And from my front porch, the other direction.

From my dining room window:  SNOW!

And from my other dining room window---this is the garden area on the side yard.  You can see my little square foot garden out there---if you can get past the rooster head. 

The Square foot garden just waiting patiently for 

Old Man Winter to go the hell away!!

Week 5--icicles

We were hit by a lot more snow on Friday night, but by Sunday afternoon, the temps began to rise, the sun was out and the melting had begun.

I tried to capture the icicles on my snowball bush, right outside the dining room window.  I finally had to open it to get a better picture.

I hope spring comes fast!

Week 4 (week 3 was a bi-week)

Week 3 was a bi, because it looked exactly the same as week 2.

(and I forgot to take a picture on week 3)

This is it today....or yesterday, Saturday, Feb.19th.

Snow.

My friend, Debbie and her husband Charlie, are friends with the people who used to live in my house. (We've lived here for almost 15 years) but their friends Sarah and Roger lived here first and put the yard in. They planted all the trees in the back...the ones which are huge now.

Debbie and Charlie had dinner with Roger and Sarah (who have moved to another state) a couple of weeks ago, and they asked about the house. They asked specifically about the yard and if the trees survived. We do live in the desert, so trees are like gold to us all.

While Roger and Sarah did plant all the trees around the perimeter, we planted the trees in the grass area and lot of bushes and plants and flowers. It used to look a lot more like the desert, but we've worked really hard these past 15 years to make it seem as if our backyard isn't in the middle of the desert.

I was thinking of getting Sarah's e-mail address and sending them some pictures of the yard, or this link.

But then I thought....well, CRAP this is ugly in the winter.

So I am going to do some blatant self-promotion here and insert a few pictures of my yard which I took this past summer.

These pics are for Sarah and Roger--to show them that the yard they worked so hard to get started was not in vain.

So you all have to turn away now---these are just for Roger and Sarah Johnson.

Roger and Sarah,  If the big trees ever die, so will I!!!  I love them, and I love the shade they give.  I love having a green yard in the middle of the sage brush.

The lilac bushes are huge now.  We've done a few different things on the side yard....dog pen, vegetable garden?  It's  changed over the years.

(you can just scroll down and down to see pictures of the side yard, etc)

Oh...and we put a cover on the patio.

Which has Virginia Creeper growing all over it.  Some people like Virginia Creeper, some people don't.   I like it--its green and it has brought a flock of  Flickers to it this past fall--I'm for anything that  brings unique birds to my backyard.

September 11th, 2010

I had a garden party brunch and I took these before the ladies got here.

10:00 a.m.

Week 2

As the Handymand has informed me.....the backyard can get pretty boring, when you look at picture after picture after picture.

Oh well....I don't know what to tell you.

Saturday, Feb. 5th.

Gray skies.

The lawn/yard still looks like crap!!

We're not very pretty in our wintery coat.