tales from the backyard

I love my new house.  I think one of the biggest surprises for me though has been how much I love my backyard.

At first, when we were thinking about buying it, the backyard was somewhat of a negative.  There is no grass. And we have a dog.  But she hasn't seemed to mind.  There are fruit trees and other foliage lining the perimeter, and sometimes she likes to pretend like she's in the jungle on safari.

And when she's had enough of the safari, she can take a dip in the pool.  She takes the same route every time.  Walks down the steps....to the end of a "bench" in the water and then paddles across the shallow end to the other end of the "bench".  Then out.

 

Of course she really prefers to swim when her people are in the pool with her.  Older son is one of her very favorite people.

Did I mention that there are fruit trees?  Several variety of citrus...grapefruits, oranges, lemons, tangerines/satsumas, kumquats.  I'm pretty sure this is dear husband's favorite part of the new home experience.  He reminds me every so often that he was perfectly happy in "the other house".   But I think he went outside two or three times today to see if any fruit had ripened since the last time.  :-)

Does anyone have any recipes for lemons?  Besides lemon-aid?  I don't often drink sugared drinks, and I think all of this lemon-aid cannot really be a good thing when it comes to my clothes continuing to fit.

Oh - and the dog (Sandy)....she likes citrus fruits, too.  At least the oranges and kumquats and tangerines.  The lemons....not so much.  We've caught her "picking" some from the lower branches.

Besides the citrus trees there are two rose bushes.  One is nearly totally eclipsed by a lemon tree, but the other produces beautiful long-stem roses that I cut periodically and put in a vase on the table.  

This flower showed up all on it's own about mid-summer.  My facebook sources say it is a Bird of Paradise.  I can see that.  But what I don't quite "get" are the green spiky cocoons around the base of the flowers.  Quite unusual.  

And that is that.  Nothing profound.  Nothing exciting.  Just some pictures from the backyard, so I can say "hi" and reassure my massive fan base ;-)  that I have not fallen off the face of the earth!