I just came in from a walk-around the property. There are daffodils in the orchard about 4" up out of the ground! Also discovered that a large part of an old apple tree split at the trunk at ground level where three or four trunks had formed over the years. It fell but didn’t land on any other shrubs or trees that I can tell right now. No way will I be able to cut it up with my little reciprocal saw, will have to call in the pros and have them cut and take everything away. It always bloomed so pretty in the Spring. We had crazy wind all evening and over night last night. I'm surprised I didn't see more damage by the sound of it.

Summersrhyth - Driving in Pittsburgh can be tricky and not for the faint of heart. That's where I learned to drive and my Father made sure I could handle steep hills with both an automatic and manual transmission. One habit I developed is to use parking break, especially on a hill - and I still do that even though I now live in a fairly flat area. The other trick involved positioning your wheels so that the curb could act as a safety block. So if you were facing downhill you would turn your wheel to the right so that your tires touched he curb, facing uphill you turn your wheel to the left away from the curb. Thankfully our cars all have Hill Assist which helps prevent roll back on a hill.

One Epiphyllum flower (from April of this year)

This is my little self-aware patio lizard. She is very taken with the mirror. She has stopped attacking the mirror and now she just checks herself out. So cute.