Our House is Naked!!!!

At long last, our house has a face for the first time since we're owned it. As it turns out, it's a vaguely sad unkempt face that needs some painting and cosmetic attention--but how is one to know until one cuts the bangs and really takes stock?!?

Here's what the house looked like just two days ago. . .


My folks came up to visit and Dad gave Dan Tree-Cutting 101-classes in the front yard. And at long last those durn trees are gone gone gone.


(That's the house, Dan, Mom and Dad. . . Dad was being shy, though, and camouflaged himself as the old trees. See close-up below:)


I have plans for the front yard garden-wise. I won't leave it looking like that forever. There's a spirea at the corner that has to go and we have to grind down the remaining tree stumps. After that, though, I am going to plant 2-3 colonnade apple trees, a hydrangea and a big old-fashioned lilac. Whatever space is left over will get filled with some perennial herbs, irises, lamb's ears and any thing else I can think of that my mama and grandma grew when I was a kid (black-eyed susans? hollyhocks? snapdragons?)