Taking shape

The last several months have been filled with the chaos that surrounds moving. LOTS of home improvement projects, both inside and out. While our house is only 10 years old, very little was done to maintain it during those 10 years—which translates into a whole lot of weekends for us spent working on it!

We've (well, actually Steve, but that rhymes with we've) tackled many of the essentials, like getting sprinklers back working, fixing water leaks, and other necessary repairs. Now we're on to the cosmetic projects, like patching holes in the walls, painting, etc. It can be overwhelming, but we really are trying to take it one step at a time.

Over the weekend, Steve decided to take a shot at reshaping the topiaries in our front yard. We knew they were there, but they really had no distinct shape and it was hard to know what they were originally intended to be.

Steve got out his electric saw/trimmer thing and went to work on the big one at first. Keep in mind, he's had no formal artistic training in topiary shaping.

Before long, there was a pile of trimmings on the ground, and this friend gracing our front yard:

The littler one was a bit more challenging to identify. At first, we thought it was a rabbit.

But as Steve worked on it, and worked on it, and worked on it some more, he found this:

The baby deer is a bit bare right now, it will take some time and work to get him filled in and plumped up a bit.

Now if we could just find a way to keep the REAL deer from eating all the bushes in the front yard, we'd really be in business!