Not Work

I've been working quite a bit lately, so I really appreciate my time away from work. Here are a few pics from Not Work.

Took a trip to Washington a few weeks ago and stayed near the ocean. Here I am in front of a light house. (Which one? Not sure.)


We rode horses on the beach. This is my horse top view.


This is one view from that lighthouse:

This past weekend included two hikes. Both hikes were in the Columbia River gorge. Today we hiked the Angel's Rest trail. Today's hiking companion, Murphy Melville:

\At the end of our hike, we perched a top a rock similar to this one:

And, enjoyed a view like this. (Ok, she was more impressed with the treat from a passing hiker, but I really liked the view.)

Walls!

This post is not about any adventure or travel or musical experience. I'm writing about the sort of thing that would make us roll our eyes when we were 20. A house project.

I haven't done much to my house since buying it last summer, but I recently became fascinated with the notion of having a wall built in my front yard. I live in a hilly neighborhood and began noticing others' walls. And, I thought it would be nice to stop hauling my lawnmower up and down the steep hill in front of my house.

See steep hill:

So, I hired a company to build a "dry stack" wall, which means you can't see any mortar between the stones. They got started, carving away at my hill.

Here is the after picture. What do you think? More curb appeal?

Here's a little closer view of the stone work:

I also had some work done behind my house. I have a garage, but another retaining wall behind my house made it really difficult to get in and out of the garage. After getting locked out of my house and car one morning while scraping the frost off my car (car running, keys in ignition), I decided I needed to address the garage situation.

Here is a before view of the wall in the back. Notice how little you can see of my neighbor's garage - the peak of the roof is peeking out from behind my fence.

Here's an after picture, showing how much of the back yard they removed to create more space.

Finally, my car tucked away in the garage. Exciting!!

The next post will be a little more sexy.