More of the Same

I took my camera with me again this morning as Max and I wandered. This is a wonderful time of year, before things begin to really heat up. Some of what I shot I'll share with y'all today, some tomorrow. 

First, the house from the front. 

Funny how once something's recorded, details become more evident. The plants really need to be trimmed. Unfortunately, I tend to pay little attention to the front, mostly because on my morning sojourn with Max I'm still in my pjs and even if I weren't I don't want Max around front--we live on a well-traveled street. Later in the day, I rarely remember. 

Trimming's gonna take some dirty work so I need to get myself geared up for it. I didn't realize how huge those bushes have become. And the roses need tending--they always need tending!--far more than the bits I do on my way to pick up the morning paper.

On one side of the house--that's the south side--you can catch a glimpse of my studio. Looks like a nice little guest cottage, doesn't it?

On the other is a peek at my big post oak... 

with the caladiums under it.

Yunno, I was thinking the other day that if I were a stranger driving past my house, I'd want to live here. Actually that's how we bought this house in the first place. 

Five years ago, building here in the golf course district was booming. Tom and I would occasionally drive around just looking, even though we weren't in the market for a new house. We still had to finish remodeling our lake house and wanted it done before we thought of moving on. But we liked the outside of this house, loved the stone. Every time we passed though, someone was working on it so we kept on going. 

Still, I'd been talking about it to my sis Ginger so one Sunday she, my SIL Sunny and I came out, thinking we could maybe check out the floor plan. But--the house was locked. While we were peering in the windows, the builder showed up and asked if we wanted to see inside. Did we ever! As soon as we'd taken the tour, I called Tom. Almost everything he said he wanted in a house, the builder had done. And the house was reasonably priced. Three days later we committed to buy.  

We finished remodeling the lake house the following spring and sold it in two days. Remodeling's much easier when you don't live there!

(Yunno, what I just did is something Robert Newton Peck called the "the gorilla in the phone booth" in his cool little book on writing Secrets of Successful Fiction. It's in the chapter on mental meandering and is not something you're supposed to do!)

A closer look at my front bed. You may think I've gone crazy with garden ornaments, but I believe I've shown remarkable restraint.  :)

Back in the back, this is the row of boulders I spoke of the other day. Behind it we let the property go natural.
A closer look at Tom's shop.

And our cute little outhouse where we keep all the nasty chemicals, which I don't like using, but which Tom insists on keeping, just in case.

Come back tomorrow for the rest of my property tour, deep in the heart of the Texas hill country.

Ta!