blessing of the week: my backyard

The other morning it was just so pretty outside--the light just hitting the treetops and sending its glow through our little woodsy backyard--that I slid open the antique wooden window and leaned out to get a few photos. 

The view straight down from the bathroom window. 

I was tempted to just post the photos without any commentary.  But remembering the last time I posted a photo of my yard and the endearing admiration that ensued in the comments (I'm looking at you, Jessica), I feel I must give you the pretty pictures within their real-life context. ; )  No Pinterest faux-idealism here!

I confess, my yard looks so much prettier in the photo above than it does in real life, because I carefully held the camera so I would not capture the huge and rotting deck of our neighbors over to the left.  That part of the yard used to be attractive too, because their wooden deck supports, which tower over our sloping lower yard, served as a scaffolding for huge and prolific blackberry vines.  But once the neighbors relocated their (illegal) laundry water run-off, which had watered those vines for years, the vines shriveled up and became a dead eyesore and fire hazard, and were finally removed.  So now we have a clear view to the whole bare under-deck, which is ugly and a little creepy.  So it's fun to see my yard in these photos without that deck so prominent in it.

Same view, wider angle and slightly to the right

What looks like a charming dirt path though the forest is really just the place over the septic tank that is not yet restored to full wild foliage after last year's excavations.  My wild calla lilies are still doing well; you can see the right hand clump of blooms, but I could not capture the left-hand clump without also getting that under-deck.  I so love flowers that thrive without any attention from me! 

The real path down to the lower yard is behind that huge fern on the right.  And if you double-click on the photos to see them enlarged, you might be able to see some of our big paving stones sitting at the foot of the path (in the hollow of that burned-out redwood stump), waiting for the day when we actually use them to make steps and a patio.  And if you look very closely to the far right, you might be able to see a shadow with straight lines; that would be our lower deck, just a wooden platform where the kids play under the redwoods.

Now same view, just looking beyond the forefront

Another view of the big stump and the edge of the lower deck beyond.  At the time of morning I took these photos, the sun was just beginning to peek down into the yard, and you can see how dark the shadows can be under all our trees.  But by early afternoon, that lower deck is the sunniest spot in the yard, and a favorite place for the kids to take their lunch.  The lower deck is right above another fairly steep but not very high slope down to the creek.  Because of all the old houses with ancient septic systems that I imagine could possibly leach into the creek, I don't really want the kids playing in the water; when they are all old enough to explore without getting it in their mouths, I will likely feel differently.

Here's another, old photo thrown in just for perspective--to give you a feel for just how big that old burned out stump is:

Years ago now, I took this photo from our back deck.

Same starting spot as the next to last image, just looking up

The exact same tree, growing next to the old burned stump, as it goes up.  That poor tree--it was smothered by years and years of vine growth when we moved in, and we hired an arborist to clear it off, but as you can see it must be difficult to wield a chainsaw delicately when you are suspended 50 feet in the air and can't really see what you are doing for the feet-deep vine leaves (the vines themselves were so thick--an inch diameter--and so woody that we burned them in the fireplace!).  The other tree you can see to the right also has some dead vines and needs a trim of secondary foliage along the trunk, but it is not cheap to hire professionals with chainsaws to dangle 50 feet in the air, so we're deciding we don't mind the tree's scruffy look.

Further to the right, still looking up.  It's really hard to take pictures of the trees in your yard when they are 200 feet high.

You can see the cheerful spring morning sun highlighting the trees--too bad I can't capture the sounds of all the backyard birds in the morning.  A beautiful cacophony!  I don't have a good enough ear to distinguish all the calls and figure out how many different kinds of birds we have living in our greater backyard area, but I would say at least ten varieties.

By the time you get to these trees, you are looking at the right-hand border of our yard.  The property is only 50 feet wide in front, and angles slightly wider by the time you get to the creek, where our property ends at the back,  but it is still a small yard.  However, with no neighbors opposite us on the other side of the creek, and our right-hand neighbor's structures hidden by trees, our yard seems wilder and much bigger.

I purposefully did not lean out and pan to the right far enough to get our own upper deck in these photos--it is as much of an old eyesore as our neighbor's. ; )  But there are three more redwoods that are not in these photos, smack up against the back deck.  A family of acorn woodpeckers lives in one, so we have the joy of watching them--one Spring a group of fledglings were learning how to fly, waaaaaay up there!  So cute to see the young ones clinging to the tree as they got brave enough to try to fly.  Another of the redwoods next to the deck hosts a colony of honeybees.  They settled into the neighborhood a couple of years ago.  They are too far up to disturb us, but we have to be careful on the deck now, because bees apparently don't live very long, and it is commonplace to walk out on the deck and find dying bees lying around.  Not good for little kids and bare feet.  But Sunny has a hobby of  carefully collecting the bee bodies and transferring them off the deck into parts of the yard she has designated the "infirmary" and "hospice" and "graveyard."  Sunny, looking over my shoulder and seeing what I am typing, wants me to tell you that she has "78 bees alone, not counting the abdomens, heads, wings, and the one exoskeleton." 

I'm sure there's education in there somewhere.  

The three redwoods near the deck have grown from the old stump of one even bigger redwood.  That old stump--it and the other stumps in the yard--are left over from the clearing of the Santa Cruz mountains redwoods to rebuild San Francisco after the quake and fire of 1906.  Redwood stumps decay to leave big hollows in the middle, which are perfect for kid playhouses.  That particular stump has a 5-foot diameter hollow in the center (the whole stump is about 7 feet diameter). Last week Happy had a friend over, and together they took fallen redwood branches and laid them over the top of the stump as a roof scaffolding, and then laid an old sheet across the branches for the roof.  They took kid sized chairs and tables and Happy's tea set inside, and made a cozy little house.  Below is a picture we took of her in it, after they were picking up and had already taken down the sheet. 

Yes, it is rather ironic that she had so much fun making her own little cozy house out of a redwood, when she lives in a cozy little house made of redwood.  We just love cozy little redwood houses!

So, there's a look into our backyard, and one of the things in my life that brings me joy on a daily basis.