Ok I am SORRY lol. I am roflmao you all. When I wrote the barefoot thing, you know how the saying goes....barefoot and naked. Well I did not want to say naked. Cause that is not something I would post. Then when I was ironing, I went over what I had posted and the NOTHING was WORSE lol. I realized what I had done lol. Karyn I would remove the chairs and put even more out there lol. I am thinking on building SHADED areas for the brugs next year. again sorry about the nothing. Ria did not meant it to come across like that. Me and my german again :-(

the one out back is near several blooming mandevilla's and the one out front is in a crepe myrtle tree, but is surrounded by a flower garden (zinnia's, lillies are about the only things in bloom there, aside from the crepe myrtle itself). After closer observation (and time to change the nectar out) They actually have about the same activity...maybe being in the tree keeps them hidden more? I just changed out the feeder this morning (6:45 am) and they are already starting!!! that's so cool...I sure do enjoy them.

Cheryl, DH has designed and built all of our cat trees. The first one we had was just a peeler core, wrapped with sisal twine, and with 2 carpeted shelves that were notched into the post. At that time, the cats were little and just loved to climb, so that was ideal for them to work out their energy. The second was just a series of posts and boxes that were carpeted and put together. That one was a pain to keep clean and after several years of wear and tear, it was done. The one we have right now is very simple, but the cats still love it. It is 5 alternating shelves- one to the left, then one to the right, then back to the left- so they could climb them more like stairs as they got older. The shelves are supported on one side by a narrow 2x4 frame, and a sisal wrapped peeler core on the other. We only carpeted the tops of the shelves on this one, and the cats were just fine with that. Our girl especially loves the top shelf that is up almost at ceiling level, it probably stays a little warmer up there and she can sleep soundly without worrying about being disturbed by anyone (she's very high strung). If you have someone in your life who has woodworking/construction experience, a cat tree can be pretty basic- just use your imagination. The real pain is if you decide to carpet the whole thing, it's like the worst upholstery job ever. That's why we opted with just stapling flat pieces of carpet to the tops of the shelves. Over the years we learned that our cats enjoyed just being up high, and climbing carpeted or twine wrapped posts most of all, so carpeting the outside of a box was just too much trouble. HTH, sorry to ramble.

Mike, thank you! I do indeed have a picture or 5 or 6 from my back deck. But you must promise not to laugh. I have gardened for a long time -- but in the back of a big brick colonial in full sun. After 10 years I had a really lovely Southern garden built around a pretty carefully curated collection of ~150 roses, from Old Blush on up through the ages. The old teas and noisettes were my favorites. THAT was maintenance, LOL. But just as you note, that was also about (ever expanding) beds,... Life changes and now I am single again, caring for a very sick mother who lives with me, communing to work in Philadelphia, trying to rehab a house and learning to garden in a new way. I mention all this to beg a little bit of a pass on my unimpressive results to date -- its hard to find time to study and learn! That said, what time I do have is devoted not to trips to the tile store, but to this -- there's an image "just below the surface" -- its compulsion. And given how precious that time is, it feels awful to be floundering! I am so grateful for your note. The site is not easy to photograph because when the sun is out, the camera really exaggerates the shadows; therefor I'm uploading shots taken on overcast days. The setting is a suburban woodland of ginormous red, white and chestnut oaks and tulip poplars that slowly are giving way to runs of American beech. It is hillside watershed into a Potomac river tributary. Soil is two or three decades of leaf litter sitting on top of marine clay, and that clay is important to keep stable. The backyard is on the south side of the house -- the sun travels right over my roof line, is blotted by 2:00 p.m. by a big old white oak on my west wall. It is a pie shaped lot, the narrow end deep in the woods. The first picture is from last fall, looking at the back of the house from about half-way to the back property line. That's metasequoia "Miss Grace" planted high on some big rocks (that can be repurposed eventually). On the far left, a very old, not terribly lovely Fosters holly (I think) -- the end of a screen of now 18 footers that I've been trying to rehab with pruning but... The second photo is from early this spring-- my little Lilliputian garden secreted among those great big trunks. [All the cryptomeria here took a bad hit with the freeze/thaw cycle this spring]. I was okay with the idea of a "grotto" as the best I would be able to do in the shadows. But when the big oak off my deck that so intimately connected the house to the woods finally gave up and came down, everything changed. In the photo below, the rocks along the property line on the right (which extends another 20 feet beyond the rocks) I put there with the idea of filling in the grade a bit, but want someone trained in water/erosion control to keep me from making a mistake I might regret. I imagined, and still do, a small pondless falls next to the big stump on the far right -- not for splash, just for some sense of movement. Now that I am thinking bolder, I also imagine that the "source" for that falls is a very shallow "destination" pond roughly behind the azaleas (in the photo below it would be mostly screened by the top of the variegated dogwood). The dogwood is Samaritan -- just one of many poor choices/placements I've made -- it will get too big to between the sun and everything that is behind it. The river stones I was just playing with. Those will go away. You can just make out the deck coffee table in the photo below, where I imagine a bench would be. The Nootka (oddly my favorite thing in the whole yard-- I love weeping forms and this one just makes me smile) also is poorly placed, probably should be snug up against the big stump to backdrop the vignette of a the falls, with a red dissectum in there somewhere (I have 1 gallon Shaina, Temukayama, Red Dragon, and Orangeola waiting for homes), and a bigger boulder than I have. I also went with Alice hydrangeas on the left for scale, but honestly I do not like them, at least not now -- they are coarse -- another variety would be lovelier. Or something else fronting that stand of oaks. The Atlas Cedar was another inexpensive chance taken -- I'm fond of him but tall as he is, he'll get no respect inn that spot. Apricot carpet roses in front of the hydrangea were meant to help call him out. Not shown here are a recently purchased an "at your own risk" 6 foot Seiryu that needs a home and an Omurayama that I imagine on the property line next to the "pondless" pond, this side the stump. And Red Sentinel, back there just to the left of the wood pile, is not his best self in that shade, neither red nor sentinel-like. Seems like his columnar shape should be next to a trunk. LOL, Where do I start from here? Lay in the hardscaping, re-position the existing trees...purchase many more... but this time with something like a plan. I sure could use a steady hand to guide me..