No picture today but a little story about this weekend's gardening efforts. This may seem like an odd weekend to start gardening since overnight temperatures here were in the -15C range, but I'm quite convinced that spring is going to be here before too much long. Given that I know nothing about the weather patterns out here, I'm taking my cue from nature; the daffodils and tulips are pushing their way through the leaf mulch and the Bluebirds have been hanging out on top of the nesting box so that's good enough for me. Strangely it wasn't too bad being outside, I found that so long as I wore two pairs of gardening gloves, two jumpers, my coat, a scarf and a hat the cold didn't bother me at all.

The garden project, like the house project, starts with the removal of tacky and tasteless relics of the former owners. And, just like the house, there have been some real gems. We got rid of the playset and Wendy House (picture in August posts) for real live money at the beginning of winter and that dramatically improved the tenor of the garden. But there were, of course, more items that needed to be gone. The first was the plastic arbor (picture also in August posts) it would squeak in the wind and white plastic sticks out like a sore thumb in the garden.

The second set of items that needed to be removed were random concrete articles. We found pavers buried under leaves, bricks buried under leaves, pavers tossed to the back of the lot in the hopes that they would decompose and disappear, but our absolute favourites were the massively over engineered washing line anchors. We knew that there was one right next to the stairs to the backgarden. Up until the big windstorm in the middle of January I had used it to hang the bird feeders so the cats could count Chicakdees and participate in the Backyard Bird Study. But then there was this windstorm, which snapped the old metal pole off at the base, leaving a lovely rusted and jagged edge poking up just above the soil. So, while I pulled the arbor out, Toby started to excavate. One spade, two people, two crowbars and several bricks later we finally got the thing out - it was anchored by two composite/concrete circles both about 8" thick and 12" across. Elated, we loaded it into the trailer and got ready to go to the dump, but then Toby said "If it's a washing line anchor, won't there be another end?" So we walked in a straight line from the first one to the odd patch of dirt where nothing grows five feet away and started to dig. It didn't take long before the spade went "clink" and Toby began to use colourful language. This one was much worse, it's metally nub was anchored by a foot long/deep cone of concrete composite in solid clay. We did get it out eventually, but up until that moment I had no idea you could actually sweat when the temperature's below zero.

I was feeling a great sense of accomplishment after we dropped the debris off at the dump...until this morning. Tywyn and I decided to do some more gardening this morning and since Toby's speaking at a conference today, we chose to rake leaves and see what exactly's growing in the mysterious beds at the back of the garden. Plus Tywyn gets plum puppy-happy when there are piles of leaves to run through at full tilt. So, we were both happy - me discovering daffodils and Tywyn running through my leaf piles - until I felt my rake hit something solid in the big corner bed. I raked some more and scrapped off a layer of debris only to discover more concrete pavers. These ones are special though, some one actually took the time to 'faux-bois' them so they're meant to look like tree stumps, albeit very, very flat tree stumps. For the time being they are still in the ground, I don't want to deny Toby the thrill of seeing them in situ.

Just one more because he's so sweet. 

Today was Tywyn's first snow day. He was a little apprehensive at first but soon got the hang of snow-ploughing and skidding. There's about 4" as of 11pm so when he went out for his final walk this evening it was very much a case of puppy has no legs. My favourite part of today was getting Tywyn to fetch snowballs! 

This is what happens when you work too much. Toby sat down to play with Tywyn and promptly fell asleep. I took this picture and then went out shopping and the scene was *exactly* the same.  

I've been awful about posting pictures since we came back from Italy in October. This little thing has been a little bit of a distraction. Tywyn (Welsh for cute puppy and pronounced Tao-in) and his 5 siblings were born October 2nd, just before we went away. Once we were back and as soon as they were old enough to receive company, we spent rather a lot of time at the breeder's house getting to know the schnuppers. It was hard to pick just one, but Tywyn seemed perfect for our house and for George and Emily. I arrived back from a weekend trip to Toronto to find Toby and Tywyn waiting for me at DCA - then Toby hopped on a plane to New Hampshire and left me at home with this small snuffling creature that wasn't a cat. We survived that first week, barely, and I'm slowly learning the ways of "The Beast" as Georege and Emmy have named him. We're most of the way through potty training and heading to puppy classes over the next few weeks to try and instill a few manners in his very smooth brain.

 

On our fourth day at the Vatican, Toby told me that I was in for surprise. Do you mean the surprise where the line goes all the way back down around the circle and across the other side? Or the surprise where it starts to rain as soon as we've taken our place in the line? No silly, it's the surprise that I can act like a German tourist and queue-hop with the best of them to make full use of my time. The lines were so long and it was our last full day in Rome, we decided to throw caution to the wind and risk being struck by thunderbolts to get to the top of the Cupola. If you go back to the first Rome photo of St. Peter's in the gloaming and look for the very top of the dome, Toby and I stood there.

While nothing funny had happened on the way to the Forum earlier in the day, funny things did happen on the way up the Cupola. Like walking through the Papal tombs not once but twice because we couldn't find sufficient decoy tourists to distract the guards so we could join the Cupola line at its smallest point. I am, however, very glad to have seen the tombs, with the exception of Paul VI, who creeps me out even in death. Finally, on our third go around some lovely tourist asked the Queue Guard some very involved question, which distracted him long enough that we could hop into the last section of the line to the Cupola. Since the rest of the line was made up of French teenagers, pre-riot, there were no protests, objections, or flaming projectiles.

The thrill of acting like German tourists wore off after step 467. The vague sense that the walls were closing in came around step 1349, and sheer terror set in about 4 steps from the top when we had to grab on to a greasy rope in order to make it through the last twisty tunnel before . Yep, that's quite the vista point. 

For a couple of heathens Toby and I spent an awful lot of time in and around the Vatican. It was our first stop and our last stop...that sounds way too biblical. We went on the first day, but it was late, we went on the second day but the Pope was on the jumbotron and the whole place was shut down, but finally, on the third day, we Vaticaned-out. This photo is of a ceiling in the Vatican Museum on the way to the Sistene Chapel. The fact that every ceiling along the way (the way being about 1.5 kms) was gilded and painted was incredible...the fact that they also mosaiced the floors and did similarly ornate things to the window frames is more than a little impressive. I have no pictures of the Sistene Chapel since I love rules and obeyed both the no talking and no snapshot rule. I'm sort of glad I didn't attempt to take pictures since I doubt that all the French teenagers taking pictures on their mobile phones will be able to capture the majesty of a finger-pointing deity. 

In the spirit of romance, Toby had attempted to surprise me with a trip to Rome. But modern customer service being what it is, the tickets turned up at home, and not at the office. Turns out that romance is not so much in the delivery of the tickets, but in the indulgences one is granted. And boy, was I romanced. Never before has a young man tolerated so many references to an Audrey Hepburn film in such a short week. But thanks to my devotion to Roman Holiday, and in particular the scene where she meets the hairdresser at St. Angelo to go dancing I took this pretty picture. 

Discovering on Labor Day that labor is no fun is kind of ironicalistic. That one little patch took about an hour to remove. We're calling in professional help.

This weekend there was proof-positive that good things come from the study of politics. The American Political Science Association had its annual conference in DC, which brought old friends to town. My friend, Catherine, managed to squeak in a few days' holiday post-conference and experience the magic of the owl wallpaper first-hand. We had fun having breakfast until noon and then exploring bits of Virginia. Tuesday's outing was to Monticello, pictured here.

And here's George, safely tucked up in bed. He's also enjoying the life of a country gentleman. While Emily hunts with Toady, George contemplates the meaning of hunting in the modern context, one where steak is provided for dinner on a Villeroy and Boch plate.

I couldn't possibly not put up photos of George and Emily. So here's Emily revisiting her street-kitty roots. She has adjusted very well to being a Southern Belle. The toad is even her best hunting companion now, of course they are separated by glass.

Same room, 8 weeks later. I forgot to add that we still need to buy curtains and paint the entry hall and replace the giant orb that hangs in the entry way and put the face plates back on the electrical outlets.

Same deal, read in choronlogical order for this to make sense! This is the living room a couple of days of after we moved in. Emily is sitting on top of the 10ft wall from whence she eventually fell.

This is the fireplace living room afterwards. As much as we like to think that this room is done, we know we're kidding ourselves. We need to add crown molding and paint the ceiling, and add a non-gold patina to the surround and put up pictures and buy a coffee table, and...the list goes on. But I'm especially proud of Toby's chair railing efforts here, he cut the railing to fit perfectly around the fireplace.

So now for the masterpiece. This is the living room fireplace before. Hopefully you're reading in chronological order for this to make sense.

MOTHRA. A break from the hideous decor to show you our giant moth. It's one of 6 giant moth species in Virginia. Emily ran away in terror.

For those innocents out there, this is a fake log from the fireplace. It has a resin log front and ultra-crackle power technology, aka a red light bulb and a tin foil noisemaker in the back.

It was a tough choice about what to show you next. This very special living room feature has departed to the same heaven where harvest gold appliances go.

This gorgeous design motif - Hallo Kitty meets Hallo Kitsch is in the current master bathroom. In the 1960s people were obviously a lot smaller; the sink comes up to my mid-thigh, so you can all imagine how much Toby loves this room.