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June 24, 2006

Well, I'm not very reliable ...

but there will be lots of pictures here, since we finally undertook that major renovation of the slope behind the house, between us and the neighbors on the north side of the block.

Here's what we started with:

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And here's how it looked by the end of Memorial Day weekend (we probably put in nearly 60 hours, altogether, two of the days which it was over 90 degrees most of the day):

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Not a half bad job for two middle-aged, fairly sedentary Midwestern desk jockeys if I do say so myself.

And in case I needed any proof that, after twenty years of office work, my wrists are now composed of Silly Putty:

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Tony thought I should have draped myself over the wheelbarrow for dramatic effect, but I wasn't walking all the way back out there so he could take another shot of it. It was hot, it was late in the day, and that wasn't happening.

Finally, here's my out front rosebush (I've never been satisfied that I know what it is), which went completely bonkers this year. I think this photo was just before the real peak of bloom, it was even heavier than this a week later:

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I did notice, driving around the neighborhood, that there are at least a dozen houses within a mile of here that have the same rosebush. It must have been cheap at one of the garden centers about twenty years ago -- that's my estimate on its age. It looks like it might be a Blaze hybrid or something. Blooms once, then the inevitable black spot almost completely denudes it of leaves. It looks dead for six months, then the following may it blooms again.

Posted by Melinda at June 24, 2006 04:53 PM

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