Day 189

Down the street there is a magical house which turned its front yard into a garden. Along with being a lot better use of space than a lawn, it always has different things flowering.

I don't know what this flower is and I don't recall it being there in the past though the bush is rather big to be new this year. Other things I recall seeing before I haven't seen this year so maybe they change things around sometimes or maybe I just pass it different times of year so different things are in bloom.

These particular flowers seem to attract a lot of butterflies and bees. I first noticed them while walking and getting buzzed by these pretty black butterflies with blue in their wings. Tonight there were some big fuzzy bees hanging out.

Day 188

It seems like a collapsed garage should have some artistic value. There are lots of broken bits, angles, light leaking in and such. This was a blind shot looking into the space between the front wall and door. You'll recall (or not so I'll attach a pic) that the garage just fell to the side leaving the right wall and back wall mostly upright and the left wall, including the left door, went over into the lawn.

I think the thing sticking out may've been a connector for a wire. The other stuff is who knows what. :) I'd like to take pics through other cracks but it's a bit too scary to climb on the garage at all since it's not totally down.

Day 187

Look, a real zucchini! I could pick it and eat it but I think I'll let it get bigger. There are a couple tomatoes and tiny peppers that haven't grown at all. In fact the peppers have lost many leaves. I don't think I'll get much of a haul from this garden, but I do have this zucchini at least.

Day 186 Happy Fourth of July!

Today the garage died. Well last night in the heavier storms is the more likely time of death, the rain today wasn't as intense. Dad just noticed it this afternoon and not until he was right in front of it. I don't think I looked out the back window at all like I usually do to check on it.

I walked Nicholas earlier and talked briefly to the neighbor and if I'd looked down the driveway then I would've seem it but I didn't look, I just headed for the front door... So it'll be a bit of an unsolved mystery.

Dad is going to see about the insurance. It might be nice to rebuild the garage and use it properly for storing things again instead of using the top of the yard for equipment. :)

I think we could probably dismantle the wreckage ourselves over time like we did the porch. Except it's way heavier and there's a ton more wood to deal with, not to mention the things crushed inside (or outside like the hose that I left back there when I last watered the garden). It seems a shame to waste it by cutting and bundling it go out with the garbage. Maybe we'll use some to make a new garage. Looking at it, it was really well constructed. The interior walls were finished with different wood than the outside wood.

Day 185

In preparation for the Fourth of July, here are some flowers and flags out front.

Day 184

Sometimes you just have to cut all your hair off. Today was one of those days for me. I was just noticing a ton of split ends. It's pretty sad though in retrospect because I didn't take any pictures of my awesome new hair discovery, the sock bun. I just tried it this weekend, it was super fun and there was a lot of potential for different looks with it but now I've cut at least six inches off my hair so I'm pretty sure there's no hope of recreating it even though I can still make a high ponytail.

So today's picture is a look at my new 'do. We'll see how it looks after a washing. I'm sure it'll be a little cooler for the summer and it'll probably grow back decently fast. My hair never gets past a certain length so in the past I've thought that it grows really slow but I think it just grows as long as it does and no more. Darn genetics, it just stops a little past my shoulders, maybe mid-shoulder blade on the back. Once, after high school, I didn't get a haircut for like five years and it never got longer, though some might try to blame it on lack of maintenance breaking the hair off but I never do anything with heat or products that really beat up hair, there's no way none of it would get longer if it was going to ever.

Day 183 Happy Canada Day

Finally I return to the alley. It's harder to pick things to take pictures of which is kind of funny because when I had a plan to map the alley I often wanted to take pictures of particular things and said no, just do the overview. So I go to take a picture of a shed or whatever and I don't have a previous picture to compare. Such is life.

I found some rose of sharons blooming in a yard behind the school. I have mixed feelings on these plants. We used to have tons in our yard at our old house. They always attracted lots of bees which wasn't something I liked as a kid (I'd swell terribly from stings, never breath-threatening but super itchy. I think I outgrew it, the last sting I got sometime as a teenager I didn't really react at all). Plus they'd drop tons of flowers to rot and they send out new trees all over the place and no matter how much you cut them back they'd always return. Once I spent hours trying to rip out some of the bushes at my uncle/aunt/cousins' house as they tried to sell it before they moved to Arkansas. It involved digging all the roots up and hacking at them with an axe. It was rather ridiculous and unproductive.

My mom wants to plant some here at this house and I am rather against it, but they're actually quite pretty I see so maybe if they were confined to a pot or something. We've got a hibiscus and a rubber tree plant, why not a nice rose of sharon? We'll see, it shouldn't be too hard to dig out a shoot or something.