Moving forward...

The view from the front porch and from the road has changed as well.  In order to put in the new driveway and gate, we needed to move what we thought were six ancient azaleas that somehow managed to survive the storm.  When we got down to the business of moving them, we found that instead of f six azaleas there were actually eleven of them.  

In this photo from a few years ago, you can see the old azaleas forming a corner of our yard with our fencing running inside the boundary lines about five feet along the front and along the side. To accommodate the driveway, we moved the fence along the north side of the property out to the boundary line and moved all but two of those azaleas along the front.  Here's another view of the bushes in bloom….from the road looking in. The pink one began the formation of the corner you see in the first photo.

And here is the new view; they are just now losing their bloom for this year; we didn't think they would bloom after just being transplanted but bloom they did.  

And a slightly different angle….

The rock runs right up along where the old fence ran; the rock is from the 20 foot slab that was destroyed in the tornado.  We are still breaking that old thing up and using the rock to secure both the new culvert and an old one along the front that diverts water during tropical storms.  

Today Hunter and I have been planting more jasmine in front of each fence post and transplanting fern to run in between each post.

Eventually, that fence line will look like this one on the other side of the property…

Another view of the new driveway and the stone that lines the first part of the entrance.  We cut away a few feet of the extra large drain field and David will start building a bulk head there this week.  The wood will be painted white to match the stone and the fence posts….  The two small trees you can just barely see the other side of the pecan are the Lemon and Cumquat trees that used to be in front of our back fence hiding the old parking area.  We are hoping they survive the transplant because they both took a real beating in the tornado when the ancient pecan fell right on top of them.  The lemon tree was accidentally cut down almost to the ground while we chainsawed our way out of the yard.  It has a lot of new growth on it so we have our fingers crossed.

Although Friday night was bit depressing sitting on the back patio looking at a sea of various shades of brown; taking the time today to look at each section of what we have so far accomplished and focusing on moving forward, I find I can visualize the day when once again, our place is an oasis for our spirits.

Our View…boy has it changed.

This was our view last May about three days before the tornado hit us.  You can see the two ancient pecans that were destroyed in the storm and the backdrop that was the 100 year old barn.  You barely notice the cars parked because of the fence that ran between the old wooden shed (destroyed) and the gate just the other side of the pump house (destroyed); the fence was covered in Confederate Jasmine and had a lemon tree, a cumquat tree and a large rose bush on the yard side.  You can barely see the chicken coop sitting just in front of the old barn and between the two sheds.

This was our view (taken the same day) looking from the barn to the house.  All of this was changed in a storm that barely lasted 4 minutes but has taken us 11 months so far to even begin to set it all right again.  The next photo was taken the day after the tornado and after we'd spent about 8 hours with chainsaws cutting our way from the back porch to the barn.

And the next one is what we've been staring at for the last four months.

A slightly different angle…shot just after we'd spent our first day on a Bobcat moving dirt and rock and the shed.  Note all the junk on the slab behind the fence is NOT ours.  That constitutes the remaining contents of the old barn that has been there since September without him doing much of anything except walk around with his hands on his hips.  WE cleaned up all the trash debris from over there in November - glass, wood, broken pottery, and bits and pieces of barn wood.  

And this is the view we saw after another day on the Bobcat……at least the Barn Junk is out of sight for the most part….

But this is what had us slightly depressed after spending the day moving dirt to form what will eventually be our new driveway and parking area….and had us doing a bit of re-thinking about the layout of it.  There is yet another boat to come in the fence plus three vehicles.  There just isn't room the way we have it now.  Something that looked big enough and "should" have worked according to measurements just won't work after all…plus, I have to say that I don't want to be looking at boats and kayaks from my back patio.

So we walked around and did some more measuring and decided that we'll move the old metal shed (that is only temporary until the new barn/garage is built next spring) forward to line up with the front of the pump house.  This will allow us to hang the kayaks on the back of the shed and park the fishing boat behind the shed hiding them from any view but from the back driveway and allow room for two of the vehicles to pull in right beside the RV. The third vehicle will park behind the RV.  

I immediately knew that for me it was the lack of trees and other landscaping that was bothering me the most…although it is not really noticeable in the photo, it is a sea of various shades of brown.  The grass has been so trampled and damaged from all the reconstruction that it is mostly weeds right now.  Removing one of the paths (the one that sort of leads to the shed but used to lead to our back gate) and replanting grass there will be a big help.  Moving my stone planters in front of the shed to hide the bottom of it will be a temporary solution to looking under the shed while sitting on the patio.  And finally, once the rock is brought in to mark the parking area, adding a black edging and planting a foundation row of boxwoods or something will break up that "sea of various shades of brown".  

You also can't see in the photo, but we've already planted Confederate jasmine on the new fence just the other side of the RV and down the new driveway.  Once that takes off, that will provide a back drop and again draw the eye away from the "sea of …" …you've got it.

And if the Farmer's son ever gets all his junk out of here….