This is so awesome!

We’ve got a real, honest to goodness RAIN happening right now!

We recently got more weather alerts, this time for thunderstorms, for the south and east areas of the province.  The usual warnings about possible hail, etc.  These storms tend to pass us by, where we are.  I remember talking to my dad on the phone and asking about storms I was hearing about, and he’s say, no, nothing over here.

I did just hear a rolling of thunder as I wrote that last sentence.  Oh, it is so wonderful to see the rain!

So here are some pictures from yesterday.

More was added after this picture was taken, but it still wasn’t enough to cover the entire flower garden.

There are plenty of leaves to rake up that can be added.  The maple grove has lots.  Unfortunately, it’s such a mess, we can’t actually do any raking.

I started cleaning up around the area closest to the flower garden.  Just around a lilac bush and a maple tree.

Most of the lilac bush was dead.  Even with the living branches, I still trimmed away deadwood.  Thankfully, I’d found some anvil pruners, which made the job easier.  At least until those break, too. :-/

I also cut away most of suckers at the base of the maple tree, taking out dead branches that had fallen – including one that had fallen right into the lilac bush – and as much as I could reach of those that hadn’t fallen yet.  These suckers have had years of growth, so a saw was needed.  The space needed to saw them meant I wasn’t trimming them as close to the trunk as I should be. :-/

(Darn.  Sounds like the rain has already stopped.  I hope more comes, later!)

This is what’s left of the lilac bush.

I took about about 3 or 4 dead trunks, along with lots of dead suckers, and trimming the excess.  I love lilacs, but they do have a spreading habit, so there was quite a bit to trim at ground level, spreading towards the maple.

I moved the old wash basin, once it was clear enough.  There’s a maple stump on the left that it used to be sitting on, as a planter (I had to cut away maple suckers from the stump, too!).  I considered turning it right side up, but that cats like to sit on it. :-D

Now there’s just the pile of soil from inside the basin to clean up.  I might put the basin upside down over the stump, just for the cats. :-D

The base of the maple tree is mostly clear; there are still suckers to cut on the other side of the trunk.

It’s amazing how much difference, just this little bit of cleaning did.  For one thing, there is no longer dead branches hanging over what used to be an open path.

This is what I cleaned out.

We need to start another wood pile.  The dead stuff can go where we are currently piling wood, but the green stuff needs to be set aside to dry, to be fuel for the fire pit next year. :-)

You can kind of see what it looked like before; the following picture was taken from the garden side, and you can see the wash basin planter and the stump it had been on.

In between working on the open areas of the yard itself (that weed trimmer is sure going to pay for itself, over and over!), we will continue to clean up in the maple grove, and continue to layer the leaves we rake up onto the flower garden.

That will take a few months.

:-)

I also moved this…

A strange place for a bird feeder stand.  It is now in the end of the flower garden outside the living room window.  We’ll look into finding some way to anchor it, since that area is more exposed to winds.  Between this and the bird bath I want to move over there, we should soon have a nice little sanctuary outside our living room window. :-)

The Re-Farmer