Arbor & Gate Part II

 One arbor/gate down... one to go. But first, I need to move that rock wall out of the way.

 Andrew's Christmas gift, a pickax, on her maiden voyage.

 As an Industrial Engineer, I should have know probability was going to catch up with us at some point. It was the eighth out of eight posts that we hit a rock.

 Trouble smashed the crocuses on her way to the catnip.

 Sorry for the detour, but I had to capture the last one still standing.

 Finally, someone took a picture of me! I look like such a professional in my mechanics' gloves.

 This is as far as we got on Saturday.

 I took the wall apart while Andrew rebuilt it.

 We made one trip to the  town highway department to get some compost to fill in the newly expanded garden. We'll have to make another trip to fill in the rest.

 Here's the mostly finished product. In addition to another load of compost, we need six more boards for the sides of the front arbor.

Time to plant some morning glories and clematis.

Arbor & Gate Part I

 I wanted to capture the "before" images before we got too far.

 Can you find the cat in this picture?

 Andrew used many of his power tools. What a great project!

 I don't know where we'd be without our 6' level.

 Can you find the cat in this picture?

 The inspiration for this project came form This Old House magazine. We skipped the bench and added our own gate design instead.

 This was as far as we made it on Sunday.

  Preview of what it will look like. (The gate is just resting on the arbor.)

 During the week we finished the final touches.

Frosted

It sounded like the world was ending the night before, but I guess we'll let it slide based on the view the next day. What the pictures don't capture is the sound of the billions of miniature icicles clicking against each other.

Brie and Trouble

Her name is Trouble after all.

Peek-a-boo.

Brie has packed on a little weight this winter, so she's started on a new weight loss program that includes daily yoga.

January Sunset

Darren Road Luge

The snow was so deep we had to walk up the driveway and then along the road the to get to the top of the luge.

Nice air!

I made the mistake of previewing the pictures I took of Andrew getting some decent air, so clearly I was a little intimidated.

As you can see this must be the "I'm going to go down one more time" trip where I injured myself and then spent the next three days popping ibuprofen.