Saturday night

It's been an incredibly beautiful day . . . high 70's, nice breeze.  And absolutely everything is blooming.  Even the magnolias -- AT LAST!  I was beginning to wonder if I had somehow managed to buy five of them of one sex or something!  I didn't think magnolias were like holly in that you had to be sure and get at least one of each sex, but these trees have been in the ground for years and hadn't ever bloomed.  This year? . . .  they are all COVERED with blooms.  Are these gorgeous or what!

 The gardenia bush by the porch is covered with blooms, too.  Usually the wind blows from that end of the porch and it smells wonderful out there, but for some reason, the wind is coming from an unusual direction today - so they look wonderful, but I couldn't really smell them unless I was right next to the bush. 

Or maybe they just got frightened since we were out there cutting down all sorts of plants and trees all day today.

Remember a couple weeks back Mark was about to cut down all those huge bushes on the side of the house, but then the chain saw broke?  Well he got a new one and went to work on that today while I limbed up the trees that were going to stay.



This is "before" from the front



"Before" from the back



Let's call this "During" from the back.  (Hmm.  Looks like we might have a bit of problem with those poles, doesn't it?)

"During" from the front

Still have a lot of cutting back to do on those bushes along the fence line there on the right above, but at least the trees that had to be removed completely have been cut down.   We're trying to decide whether to cut those back to fence height, or cut them all the way to the ground and let them grow all new branches.   It'll get finished up tomorrow, then they'll get started putting up all the gates on the pastures and paddocks.  I doubt if they'll finish this weekend since I think Mark said we still need to go get something like 8 more gates!

But we're getting there.  (Hang on, Duke.)