Project: Rose Containment

No, not that Rose:

Rose

This rose:

rose: in need of containment

 Or perhaps more generally, these roses:

Roses, in need of containment

They're growing over the fence and blocking the sidewalk and touching the ground.  Crazy.

They are out of control.  We got ourselves an archway trellis and after a few thorny scratches, some rope and zip ties, we're feeling much better:

Here's the view from the front:

We've been having good summer fun times lately, with more in store.  Last weekend we were at a fabulous Birthday party for Henry & Audrey, where there were a dozen children wielding water balloons and squirt guns.  Total mayhem.  After the party, I had this conversation with Lucy:

Me: OK Lucy, time to get ready for bed.
Lucy: I don't have to have a bath, do I?
Me: Hrm.  Let's see.  You were hit with several water balloons and numerous squirt guns, right?  I think that pretty much equals a bath.
Lucy: Yeah!

Mark that down as another Great Moment in Parenting, folks.

Our next door neighbor (who will be watching Norbert, the fish, while we're away) just stopped by to show us what she found:

He was in the middle of the road, with a lot of traffic flying by, so she picked him up.  Now he's in the pond in her backyard.  The girls are really excited:

I think it's a painted turtle.

Welcome Back, Clematis!

Our clematis has finally bloomed! We thought we had killed it, but then we noticed one long shoot wrapping itself around the yellow rose bush, and then....finally....this lovely flower appeared. Hooray!

We're at the beach at the moment (the photo above is a few days old). Lucy is having some ups and downs. We were down by the ocean today, but didn't last long because Lucy is 2, and 2-year-olds, well, they have strong opinions about what they want to do and when they want to do it. On the walk back to the bike (to return home) we had this conversation:

Lucy: There's sand in my shoes.

Jake: Yeah, well, that's OK.

Lucy: That's why they're called sandals.

Wow. I wish I had thought of that line.

The Flowering of 83 Durant

There was once an ugly brown vine thing hanging over our fence. We thought about ripping it out, as it just looked like dead vine. But a neighbor said that it had lovely white flowers on it, so we left it to see what it would do. And there it is, with really spectacular white flowers blooming on it! They're covering the (otherwise rather ugly) fence, which is great. My aunt said that it's a clematis, and a well-established one.

After the forsythia bloomed all yellow and lovely, the color moved on to this next bush. We don't know what it is, but we like it:



We also noticed three green bushes with tiny white flowers on them. We wondered what they were, until a few days ago we noticed some interesting details. Check out the photo:


We think they're blueberries!! That would be awesome. (Feel free to comment if you think they're something else -- go ahead, crush our dreams of blueberries in our yard.)

Today I did a little bit of front yard clean-up and pruning while I waited for our roofer to stop by with an estimate for fixing our messed up gutter. He was across the street, giving an estimate to the agent of the people who want to buy the brown house directly across from us (where Dmitri and Junior and the duck live, sadly). He came over, as did the lady, and the lady said: "Our home inspector was here on Friday and pointed out some problems with the roof. Then he pointed to this roof (pointing to our house) and said THAT'S what a roof should look like." It was most gratifying to hear this.