The Back Forties

   The upcoming photos aren't entirely fair 'before/after' pictures. I've tried my best in these posts to match up aspects of a shot, using angles, distance and lighting, so that you, dear reader, feel that you are seeing the house as it truly was, as well as what it is becoming...but there just isn't anything I can do about the injustices of the seasons.

   Spring can't help itself...it is just so darn beautiful!

   So this is the immediate back of sweetlittlehouse sometime in early November just after I moved in; Pete had been camping out here for about two weeks. The baby-sized table is a school desk Pete had found in the shed and used as a sawhorse. We had just bought a bag of river stones from across the road (as evidenced by the lighter patch of ground to the left) to see how we liked them on the path. Clearly we hadn't yet found the back door.

   And now it is mid May and shockingly gorgeous. As you can see, we did like the river stones so we had two tons delivered...for fifty dollars..bless their hearts. The lovely green screen door seems as pleased to be here as we are to have it. And the beds are coming in zealously.

  Taking a few steps east toward the garage, and turning back to face the house, last November you would have seen this -

But now...again....glorious May-

And with your back to the house and looking toward the garage and screened-in porch, sometime before we found sweetlittlehouse, as this was a realtor' s photo...

And now...

And the sweet and sad and hopefully stable grape trellis I fashioned-

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And the equally sweet and sad and hopefully stable moss farm I've begun under the tipi-

And my native fern and violet bed under the Norway maple-

   And last but never least...our favorite views from the furthest back forty-

And another with the screened-in porch-

And now a wonderful surprise I found in the woods this week thanks to Loretta-

A jack-in-the-pulpit ...

and lady's slippers, presently blooming

I will never tire of Spring!