A long day but a sweet reward

I’m exhausted! We spent the day working HARD. So, it’s the good, satisfying, I-accomplished-something kind of exhausted.

We worked on Ruby-proofing the backyard. There are still two areas that need attention but we worked on the most important ones. I cleaned out the dog run, powerwashed everything, and we put a 1/2 yard of gravel in it — nice and clean . . . see:

She’ll only be in there when we are gone for a long enough time that we can’t leave her in the house (like if Greg’s out of town and I’m at work all day) The dog house is WAY too huge for her but we’ll make do for awhile. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to go get a nice bale of pine shavings to fill the bottom of the dog house with to make it cozy for her if she has to be out there when its raining.

Greg fixed one gate that was broken and cut wood for the bottom of our deck (the one over the creek!) because the gap was fine for labs but Ruby could go right under it. I stained the wood and he’ll put it up tomorrow morning.

Gosh, when I put it in a list, it doesn’t seem like much but it was and it took all day — well, just shoveling the gravel is a ton of work! (almost literally!).

Allens/Rufous Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by egret’s nest.

When I was cleaning up and Greg was taking his shower, I saw this new friend at my feeder. We get Allens and/or Rufous Hummingbirds cruising through in late January and February. They are smaller than our normal Anna’s hummers and have a bronzey-orange color to them. Utterly gorgeous. This one was VERY hungry — he kept coming back and eating even though it was getting pretty dark. There was another hummer chirping at him from a tree nearby — I couldn’t see if it was another A/R hummer or if it was an Anna’s who was miffed. But, from the size, I think it was an A/R. It’s not a great picture but I was so excited to get it.

The kids had sleepovers with friends tonight so Greg and I went out and got Chinese food from our local, awesome Chinese restaurant. It’s soooooo good! I order it online and we run down 20 minutes later and it’s waiting for us and still hot when we get home. We watched National Treasure tonight (We love Netflix) and after we were done eating, we had drinks and popcorn. I figure after the amazing labor my body did today a martini is only fair!

And now to bed. Tomorrow is a big day and Greg and I are gonna be SORE!