Rabbit and pear tree

Do you remember the moral stories I told you last time from the experiences we had with a rabbit getting out and the pear fire blight?

Update #1: not only did the rabbit (hereafter known as Houdini) give up all his rights to relative freedom after escaping twice by being stuck in a cage by himself, but Alex discovered two days later that his poor little head was covered with engorged ticks. We figured he must have gotten them while he was roaming around in our garden. Which also helps explain why last Sunday while we were sitting in sacrament meeting, a tick crawled across Alex's leg!! He killed it (or so he thought) and 5 minutes later either it or its twin was crawling up my skirt! Ack! In the middle of church! Alex had been out to pick rhubarb right before church. I picked all the ticks (18) off of poor little Houdini with Alex helping to hold him. Then I promptly applied Advantix to my dogs. To tell you the truth, I kind of like picking ticks off of things that aren't myself.

Update #2: the fire blight we thought was controlled with a massive pruning continues to plague the poor pear tree. We have had to chop off many other branches and the tree, consequently, looks gutted. We are hoping it will survive the onslaught. The moral story is that you will keep getting chopped to pieces if you can't rid yourself of an aggressive bacterial disease.

Some remaining pears

Alex took a few pictures of our yard today. Every spring I am so grateful that he had the foresight to plant so many wonderful things in our yard. We have been blessed by all the fruitful plants that have grown on our little 1/3 acre. It will be very hard to leave this place. We will miss the people here too. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Here are a few pictures.

And the patio...