We did not arrive back to our beautiful mountains until the second week in February. It was a difficult end to 2011 and beginning of 2012 as we had to deal with sad ansd upsetting task of moving Mom into a nursing home and selling her house. The good news was that the weather was amazingly warm, both in Rochester and NC. Things were in good shape outside when we arrived due to such a mild winter. Cutting back dead grasses and plants was the first task after arrival. There were a few cold day that I spent in the bus working on the computer but much of February could be spent outside. Due to the warm weather spring came early and forsythia, pear trees, quince were all in bloom by April1.  The myrtle was finally really starting to spread. The combination of the pears, myrtle and quince was stunning. Below are some photo of our beautiful spring.

I want to introduce you to Angel, our white Piebald deer who has been hanging around our neighborhood since we moved here. She seems to like our land and I was lucky to get these shots of her. A piebald is an animal, that has a spotting pattern of large white and black patches.  You'll see more pictures of Angel and her babies in future years. 

We love birds and have many feeders outside our windows. Below are a few of our visitors. 

In mid March we tackled our first big outdoor project - cleaning the horrid multi flora rose bushes from the hemlock and spruce trees at the bottom of our land. Of course we got carried away and did more than originally planned. Gary cleared all the rose bushes and years of debris around the creek at the bottom or our driveway. This is our neighbor's land but we look at it every day and it was important to us to have this looking good. It is a very pretty area. ​​

And before we knew it summer was here. Below are some scenes of our 2012 summer. You'll notice the addition of dog number six. That's Jack. He belonged to a neighbor and loved our dogs. He was here constantly and finally just moved in. 

I'm kind of obsessed with cleaning the woods of fallen limbs and weeds. The last three pictures above show the woods behind the bus after I spent many hours removing debris. 

Frogs moved into our dog watering hole. At  first we thought it was a cute novelty. But it quickly became an infestation. Their croaking kept me awake at night. I removed them several times to the big pond, but some always reappeared. I eventually go rid of this watering hole and it is now planted with a Hosta. 

We moved from the bus to the cabin in late summer. The pictures above show the cabin garden. I love blue hydrangea which stems from my Long Island youth, as they grow so well there especially on Shelter Island. So, I planted them in the shady part of this garden. It the woods above the cabin, beyond where the pool sits, is an area of beautiful ferns.

This is our burn pile area, where we put all the burnable building and garden debris. Eventually we will build Gary's shop on this site.

Asparagus are doing well and lots of pole beans to freeze. I also added some raspberry bushes in this area. The tall Verbena in the veggie garden area attracts lots of bees and butterflies. plus it looks pretty.

Scenes of summer 2012 below. 

You know the drill, click the link to move on to . . . 2013 Barn Raising