The covenants for the neighborhood where our house is located require that we plant at least two Norway Maple trees on the tree lawn (the median between the sidewalk and the street). Since we live on a corner lot, two trees would look pretty sparse. So, Nina went down to the nursery yesterday and bought six trees. The young fellow from the nursery arrived this morning about 7:30 a.m. to plant the trees for us. Before we arrived, Nina and I went out and kind of judged where we wanted the trees to be planted. He then set each of the trees in about their spot so we could check out the "look" before he started digging holes in the ground. The trees are now planted and it looks great. We’re actually starting to have a yard! In this picture Nina and the tree planter are talking over by his truck and trailer.

I mowed the grass on Monday evening after work. It took a couple of hours to get everything cut. Of course, the weeds are growing faster than the grass right now and already it needs to be cut again. I’m headed to Belgium tomorrow (Saturday) for a two-week business trip, so the yard probably won’t get mowed again until I get back. The big debate is: to buy nor not to buy a riding mower. If we buy one, we can mow whenever we want (or have time) and either Nina or I can do the mowing. If we don’t buy, then we’ll need to hire someone to do it. It’d probably cost about $15 each time to mow the yard. How many times can we pay for the lawn to be mowed before we’ve paid for a small riding mower? About 60 times if we buy a Sears mower or about 87 times if we buy a small Toro mower. That’s about 4 or 5 years! Right now I think we’ll buy the mower as we don’t know anyone to hire…. Decision time will be when I get back from Europe.

The back yard is beginning to look better. Nina has been pulling up morning glory weeds for several days and I’ve put down some fertilizer. The grass has really started to grow wherever I managed to get the fertilizer down. In a month or so I’ll put more fertilizer down along with some weed control. The backyard is now becoming somewhat usable. The hot tub has been put in place and has been getting good use. The only problem is, a new development has started just south of us (this picture is looking south) and they are generating a huge amount of dust. Some of that is seeping into the hot tub and mucking up the water. The dust making should be done by mid-September when I’ll change the water and clean the filters, hopefully ending this problem. The fence guy comes the 2nd week of September to put up the fence around the yard. That’ll be time for another picture!

Nina has become wonderfully domestic this week. She’s made bread a couple of times, made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies (which I brought into work, much to the delight of the office), canned a bunch of peaches, and has been making raspberry, peach, and strawberry jam. The bread is wonderful — I love toast for breakfast made from homemade bread. I’m sure I’ve gained a significant amount of weight this week. Perhaps it’s a good thing I’m headed out of town for a while (at least from an eating point of view) to let some of this weight go away! The next posts should be from Europe. I’ll be in Sofia, Bulgaria on Monday and Tuesday, in Gent, Belgium for the next week, and then in Antwerp through September 3rd. Lots of picture-taking opportunity. TTFN!