Here's our front window

Here's our exterior wall that runs perpendicular to our street. We got that Weber grill at Fred Meyer--it is chained to the three when we're not grilling on it; the guys have cooked on it twice already, the last time on the 4th of July. That's the little roof over our side door, looking like a piece of plywood suspended from who knows what between the tree trunk and the wall. We have a little concrete stoop there and a few steps. Opening the side door makes for a great cross breeze in our living room.

We brought all of our wind chimes from Byram. You can see some of them here, on the railing, hanging from magnetic cuphooks--pretty nifty. You can just make out the rusty fish, above the railing and holding a large white flower, and the rusty dachshund with a heart and wings. They're stuck in our little bit of earth. If there weren't so much shade, I'd have some tomato plants growing there, either in a pot or in the ground. Right now we've got a couple of gangly, tall orange cosmos in two small pots. They are blooming brightly now, but weren't when I took this photo a few weeks ago.

The lowest limb on that tree grows parallel with the exterior wall and is too high up to show in this photo. You can, however, see the curvy brass wind chime hanging from it. You shoulda seen me throwing a ball of twine, trying to get it to go over the limb so that I could tie the wind chime to it! On the third try, I finally got it. Then I discovered that even with our kitchen folding stool, I was way to short to tie off the wind chime at a height that wouldn't connect with everyone's heads. Leland had to do it for me. He just hopped up onto that little brick wall and did it. Oh to be young, strong and limber.