June 2008: Punished for our vanity.

So we spent some time improving the aesthetics. Here's a series of little plants we planted, about half of which have died since then. (All of them were either succulents, native species, or drought-resistant b/c we wanted varieties that weren't very high maintenance . . . but something somewhere misfired.)

Psst. . . by the way, if you look closely, you can see the little metal sugar canister we use for amassing earthy junk in the kitchen, and behind it is a pitcher for our used coffee grounds. (Last year, I made occasional trips to Starbucks for their leftover coffee grounds -- for the unitiated, it's a good source of nitrogen -- but one time one of these bags had that great little metal measuring pitcher in it).

And finally, some ivy that we transplanted from our Atlanta apartment complex to these pots, transplanted once again into the Austin soil (in this same place) a few months ago.

Jenny used her rock climbing gear to get up into our oak and trim off some dead branches . . .

We broke down the branches for kindling this winter, though I'm sad to say our fires have been few and far between.

I also moved the firewood away from the base of the tree and organized it onto a rack we bought from a guy on Craigslist . . .

God, it's hard to beat a good oak.

. . . And we made some progress on our pebble path.