Full Bloom Trees; Half Bloom Sidewalk

Today is either the 5th or 6th straight day of 80 degree weather and everything in the yard is definitely showing the effects. The cherry blossom tree usually starts blooming in mid- to late-April and takes about two weeks to come to full bloom. Both opened yesterday and both look to be at full bloom today! Inconceivable.







Made good progress today on ripping up the sidewalk between the garage and the house. Here's just one of the piles of cement from its previous incarnation as a boring, white-bread, cement sidewalk. It's amazing what you can do with one sledge hammer and a lot of sweat. :-)



Here's the beginnings of what it will look like in its new life. The larger, rectangular stone is the one that will sit inside the threshold of the gate. In addition to these three stones, i have four large(ish) stones left. Those four will have to spread out and fill the remainder of the sidewalk. The spaces between these large stepping stones will get filled with mid-sized stones, if i can rummage up enough of them in the back yard. After that it's down to small stones. Lot's and lot's of them.