Just make yourself at home

This morning I looked out the window and saw this in the backyard:
She stayed for a long time and seemed to calmly look right back at Genevieve and me. I started outside to see how close I could get, but then the kid shouted "No, don't!". Of course then the doe got up and walked away. We each blamed the other for scaring her off.

Spring Flowers

Contrary to popular belief, Rochester does eventually thaw and become a nice place to live every year. Gotta love those first flowers of spring!

Strange weather we're having, ain't it?

In the past week or so we have had blizzards, rain, extreme cold (down to 0 degrees F), very warm weather (in the 60s yesterday), and now a huge windstorm.

Sometime in the night a huge Silver Maple in our backyard got blown over. As you can see here, it wrecked the fence that separates our yard from the Country Club parking lot as well as taking out a few smaller trees.

It extends quite a ways beyond the fence into the parking lot.

The tree service guy was just here. He says that our insurance will cover the removal since it damaged a structure. I think the fence actually belongs to the Country Club, so their insurance will probably take care of repairing it. We're also going to take out the tree next to the one that fell. Ironically, that was the one we knew was dead and were more concerned about.

It's one of those things we've known we had to deal with for a while but kept hoping we could put off the expense another year. I guess we're just lucky it didn't fall toward the house.

Flowers

I love flowers. I absolutely adore flowering trees and bushes. If I had my way, my whole yard would be full of flowers. Two things stand in my way. First, I'm not much of a gardener, and second, my yard is practically all shade (which I am learning is NOT good for most flowers). However, we do have a few really lovely perennials. One of my favorites is the profusion of orange day lillies that runs across the front of our stone wall by the street. Every year I look forward to them.
Ready for a close-up?

For the most part, I do not like flowers on my walls, though. We have some of the most hideous wallpaper in the 2nd bathroom. I can't imagine why anyone ever thought that 4" flowers in mauve, pink, blue and gold with giant green leaves would be attractive.

So yesterday I decided I couldn't stand it anymore and started ripping it off. Ahhh, that feels good. It only took me five years to get around to it! Look at the lovely blue paint they covered up with that awful stuff (yes, they even covered the medicine cabinet in their enthusiasm)!

Genevieve is mad at me, though. She doesn't like change, and assumes that anything with flowers on it must be pretty. I need to work on her sense of style.