Some days, we wake up in the clouds

Yesterday, the fog was below us, visible in the view toward the main road. Today we have no view beyond our immediate neighbors' homes.


The sourwood shows its characteristically craggy shape as a silhouette in the center of this frame. We usually view it about like this - this picture is taken from the deck, but we can't see the top or bottom of the close-in trees from inside the house.



The next photo shows the view across our slope toward the neighbors' house. A few small green flags mark possible locations for future landscaping. (Click on the picture for a larger view.) Additional flags are located to the right and lower on the slope. The area shown was the location of the old logging road. Our excavator restored the slope to something more like its natural shape when he filled over the septic field (out of view to the right in this photo). Two additional pines below the three we had planted two years ago, then some redbuds, dogwood, rhododendron and other natives will continue to fill in and continue the slope restoration process.

The second photo at this link - with Cheryl and Dorry standing on a pile of rocks - is approximately the same view, taken the summer our house excavation had just begun. A small red flag marked a deck corner in that photo.

We won't try to add all the new plants at once - our pressure tank system doesn't have enough pressure to get much water out there to the far side of the property. We have been using rain barrel water and a separate pump to water the small pines. If this is a dry summer, we would have a difficult time giving all the planned trees and shrubs enough moisture to get established.