It was a gorgeous day today. Must have been 80 degrees and sunny with the cooling afternoon shower. Art is off on another fire call. This isn't supposed to be that busy a time, but it sure has been this year! We worked in the yard all day today. A's friend St loaned him his excavator for a while. St helped clean up the pond since it was a tricky angle, then A has dug a trench so we can plant a drain pipe in the field between the stream and the greenhouse since I want to make it into my garden, and right now it is pretty much swamp land. We also shaved back the hill in back of the house and filled in the yard where the stream has washed it away in the all of the flooding we have had the past few years. In a joint effort between the excavator and the bobcat A moved some beautiful boulders up front for a rock retaining wall in the front yard. It used to have a pretty severe slope down to the road, but now I am backfilling so it will be nice and level. We still need to plant some rocks on the other side of the rock steps we put in last year. and pull up the burm so we can plant some grasses, and maybe phlox. I want to keep it soft because we keep backing up onto it. I thought rocks would not be such a good thing for the back of my car! The dog thoroughly enjoyed himself today. He was catching frogs in the pond and swimming all day. Since the pond has been dug out he has decided he likes to swim in there. There is a little "island" of sand that was deposited during the last storm that we couldn't reach all of to remove with the excavator. Po uses this for his home base. He is dirt and wet to the core! Also extremely content with a dopey malamute grin on his face!