The "after" shots . . .

Okay - here's where we started --

And here's how it looks now . . .

And from the back "before" --

and "after" . . .

Now you can see those ugly A/C's and that unattractive chain link from the road, but I know it won't take long - probably only this summer - before those red tip photinia bushes grow back up to the height of that 6-foot chain link.  But THIS time we'll keep them cut back to that level.  If you look closely at the picture below, you can see that they are already sprouting from the roots again. 

The pasture fencing is done now except for the individual paddocks and the fences and gates that will divide the pastures.  I got a little worried when Mark got the electric fencing done in back because I insisted we get black wire, and you can't really see that it's there!   It just looks like a row of black posts from a distance.  And at night it ALL just disappears.

But once you get within about 20 or 30 feet you CAN see it, so I'm sure the horses won't be running into it by accident after all.  And the size of that wire is so large that it wouldn't cut them anyway.  Besides - once they figure out that it's electric I'm sure they'll be VERY careful.

The place where we bought Duke kept him in a paddock made up of only a single regular sized electric wire on t-posts.  He knew exactly what that meant and he wasn't a bit intimidated by it!  He would amble up to it and stick his head over until his neck was within an inch or so of the thing, but he NEVER accidentally touched it!  So I'm sure they'll be just fine with that giant stuff.

We also limbed up all the new oak trees around the place over the weekend as well so Mark can now mow safely without decapitating himself if he doesn't happen to be paying attention!   Here are a few of those trees in the dog yard in back.

Now if the Parish will just pick up all those branches we piled out by the road.  They'll come get things like refrigerators and sofas and that sort of thing if you pile them out there, but I'm not sure about branches.  I hope so, because we have to almost pull all the way out into the road to see if anything is coming from that direction now.  Well, they go by on Thursdays, so we'll find out then I guess.

The top rail of that fence in front is a little over 5 feet high so you can see what a huge pile of branches that is!

Okay.  Enough about that.  Time to start thinking about our vacation coming up.  Hard to imagine, really.  This will be the first time in YEARS that we've taken a vacation for an entire two weeks straight.  Until now, I've needed to save up vacation so I could go back home in case Dad got really sick.  He's gone now -- it was a year in March.  It's going to feel very very strange to go home and NOT get to go see Dad.  I'm afraid it's going to make his loss much more real to me.  While I'm down here, unless I think about it specifically, it still feels to me like he's living up there in Ohio as he always was.  I think going home and not seeing him is going to be disturbing. 

But I need to go so we can see family and friends.  We're going to go on up to Michigan to see Mark's aunt, too.  I've never been up there before. 

And I'm REALLY looking forward to a stop in Lexington at the Kentucky Horse Park.  I loved that place when I lived up there.  And since the World Equestrian Games I've heard they've upgraded it a lot.  I want to take one of those tours of the area horse farms while we're there, too -- something else I never took the time to do when I lived there.

And thank goodness for Torri!  She's going to take care of all our critters while we're gone -- dogs, cats, horses . . . the whole nine yards.  It will be SO good to know they aren't stuck in a kennel somewhere for all that time.  We've decided NOT to bring any of the horses home until we get back.  We were going to bring Duke home now and the girls later, but I don't think I want him out there all by himself while we're gone.  He'll be much safer over there with the rest of the herd.  (Sorry, Al.)