new fence, new job, new summer

So, biggest news first. Sharon is coming home in two days. She is in the middle of papers and exams as well as trying to get her room ready for the sub-letter and getting her stuff together to come back to Philadelphia. Can't wait for her to be home!

Second biggest news is that we finally finished the fence that we've been planning for the side yard since we started cleaning it up. As you can see, the fence has been built! We used 15-20 8' slabs from a sawmill in Fairview Village (Spacht Sawmill). These slabs are the first cuts made to logs to make them square, so they are pretty much useless scraps that they sell as firewood. We got all the wood for a little under $30. The people there are super friendly and specialize in fine woods, custom woodworkers, carvers, etc. Go check it out.


The yard rises, so with the old, short fence we would be basically eye-to-eye with sidewalk passersby and the neighbors across the street when we're hanging out on the deck in the back, so the new fence was much needed. This morning I put down all the stone (Schist), and hopefully we will be adding some plants soon to make it pretty.

On to other news. I have a new job which I will begin next week at Preservation Tree. It's a small company and the other guys are really cool. I'm definitely excited to climb some big trees and not be making intern pay anymore. It will be sad to leave the Arboretum, but we have to leave the nest sometime.

In the so-so news category, we are buying a car. I'm half excited to be among the folks out there that can go anywhere they please, no matter the weather or distance. At the same time I'm bumming that I will be back in the land of clutches, brakes, tires, oil changes, light bulbs, timing belts, squeaks, rattles, etc. We're getting a 2001 Honda Civic that gets 35mpg, which I am really excited about. Our last car got 24ish mpg and with $4-5 gas on the horizon, we couldn't go back to that.

Looking ahead, I start my job on the 9th, Sharon starts her summer job on the 16th, we have a Nowak family wedding on the 21st in VA (which should be fun) and then a whole summer of fun ahead of us. On a small side note, Sharon was fortunate enough to receive some funding to do research in Paraguay, so we are starting to plan for a trip to the middle of S. America. Travel, you long lost friend, we are coming back!