Burning down the house

We had a great visit from Mom and friend Sue:

We hiked our backyard trails:

It rain when they were here, so they got to see the creek in peak glory:

We played with our tiny flare gun:

Sue tried burning down our house with it:

We also did some lounging:

And visited Irina:

Mom, remember this fledgling Green-brier vine?

In just 3 weeks it has grown into a 20' monster, about 8" a day!

Irina also had a visitor this month, Vera, her childhood friend from Moscow:

We took Vera and Irina for a weekend on the gulf, Pensacola this time:

I made sure I would go ‘off line’ and enjoy the beach by smashing my phone in our car door:

We rented a fancy condo with a view of the world. If you look just above the railing in this picture, you can see the curvature of the earth:

Pelicans kept an eye on us, regularly policing the beach with fly overs:

And various creatures came out of the sea in mostly unsuccessful attempts to scare us:

Back home, I internet-ed a 400 lb marble table into our kitchen. The delivery guy and I had a fun time carting it up our steep driveway:

This is my first step in transforming our kitchen from black to white:

Another project this month was to negotiate a deal with a tree that was in the middle of my trail. I asked him politely (using my winch) to move to one side:

This wizard watched in amusement:

I have visions of him playing a Roadrunner -vs- Coyote trick, gnawing at the rope so it breaks and the tree flips back and whack me down as I go for a daily run. So far the rope has held …

Bruce