A year in my backyard #2

I've stuck to it for one whole week!  Yay!

We are getting lots of smoke from the Yosemite fire in California.  (and that is over 250 miles away).  It's hurting my eyes and giving me a headache.
Fires all over the west.
Sometimes it's good---natures way of getting rid of the overgrowth---but it makes me very sad to see forests go up in flames.  Not to mention people's homes and fireman's lives.

I don't know if you can even see the smoky haze thru the pictures, but if you can, that's where it's coming from.  

A year in my backyard #1

Remember the old filmstrips or movies we used to watch in science class... where they had the  'time speed' function?  It used to be all chunky and clunky, because they didn't have the technology we do now?
I've always wanted to do that.  To see how my yard changes in a year.

Now....if only I can stick to it.
Once a week.  3 photos.

Here we go:

A winter day?

It rained all night long.  It's January--that was supposed to be snow.  It's just really weird

I have moss growing on my tree.  In January.  And I live in the desert.  Okay, the high DRY desert.  We don't get green stuff growing on our trees usually.

And I'm a bad apple, as I left some on my tree last fall.... and the birds didn't even get them all.

I didn't really do a good garden/yard clean up  either..... but heck, it's warm enough--I can get out there this afternoon and  pull weeds, etc.
I really need to prune some bushes this spring.

outside my windows

I used to take pictures of my yard, post them,  and called the weekly  (almost) post,   "What's Outside My Kitchen Window."   
I had some friends who would show me what was outside their windows too.
If I had been on the ball, I could have made it into a blog hop or something, but I didn't, which is probably just as well, since I don't tend to stick to things.

It has been so warm this winter, and we've had no moisture or snow whatsoever .....until this morning, so once again I took pictures of 'what's outside my windows.
The Handyman commented on my pictures,  "are those from today?"
me, "yes"
Handyman,  "well, its hard to tell, you take pictures every time it snows and they all look the same.   For the past 15 years."It does seem I take pictures of the same things all the time.....






Pictures of what's outside my windows.
I don't have that  many exciting garden happenings in the winter I guess.

(looking at these pictures of my backyard, I can tell that I never really winterized.   I should get out and do that once the snow leaves---which it will soon enough,  we've had a very dry winter)


Family room:

kitchen:

dining room:

Living room:

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!!