Saturday, May 20 -- Next time I go outside, I’ll be sure to take the camera because JDub’s changing our property’s terrain with the nifty Bobcat thingy. Not that it’s making the steep slopes not-so-steep, but he’s doing a lot of widening and flattening where he can. There’s a bank alongside the entrance to the property (overrun with godawful scotch broom, which is everywhere on the island and the surrounding environs and makes the countryside look like somebody dropped tons of squashed baby chicks…everywhere), and he’s taken a huge chunk out of that bank. That’ll open up a lot more space for parking, and then storing the boat, etc. His primary goal is to continue widening/flattening that bank which extends the length behind our camping trailer. He’s planning on (get this) cutting a big hole in the back of the trailer (where our “bedroom” is) and building a framed-in push-out so that we don’t have to make and unmake the bed every night/morning. 
It’ll actually be a bedroom, and so the path to the bathroom won’t be blocked anymore (which is why we make/unmake the bed every day). I can’t quite imagine this, but JDub is pretty much McGyver.
It’s been cool and cloudy but right this minute the sun is trying to peek through, and it’s stayed dry so far. Even last night when we arrived, after areas of heavy rain on the drive (especially at home), we were able to sit out on the deck and have a fire. What a feeling that was after these last weeks. To kick back in our LaFumas and sip wine/Baileys with the wiener dogs roasting in their bed in front of the fire thingy. I felt giant ripples of tension drain out of my body, leaving big puddles on the deck beneath my big toes.
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Wow. I napped (since power to the trailer was curtailed and my laptop battery is wussy, and the book I’m reading isn’t all that great), and even though I didn’t feel like I slept much at all with the dogs log-rolling on me and I was the log, I must have. Because upon wakening when JDub finally clunked and banged came back inside the trailer and I peered outside to see his progress, I realized he was DONE. Well, at least with his primary goal. Wow. And now that he’s back inside napping, the dogs have no reason to log-roll anyone. They are finally content to have Alpha back in their midst.
It’s also beautiful outside, but really windy. Like annoying windy. I do need to go fill the birdfeeder. There was no point in filling it earlier with all the bobcat noise. 
I can’t get over how much our plants have grown in our little landscaped area! Just in the month since we’ve been here, it’s absolutely amazing, to the point where I already feel that things have overgrown their space! (Can you prune sage?) Everything survived the winter just fine, and the clematis is blooming! I really didn’t expect that until a couple of years or so down the road. Really need to stake that puppy. I thought it would naturally climb the anti- white trash screen, but apparently it needs some assistance. I’m delighted at the happiness and healthiness of all these plants, but also rather alarmed. We may need to create another little rockery area and transplant some of them. The photos to the right were taken last year after we planted and then a couple of months later. Wow.
I was glad to see that all the Round-upping I did last time we were here really did the trick. It killed a big swath of baby scotch broom that I’d soaked the hell out of (yay!), as well as other weeds. I can also see swaths that I missed! Oooops.
So, here's the blooming clamatis, and then a blurry picture of two gold finches at the bird feeder! What a treat!
[I know the layout of these pictures suck -- I messed with them a bit, but I've given up with making better use of white space here! WYSIWYG my butt.]
