Moving Forward

To sum up from the last post - the guy who cut the tree down did come and clean up my yard. I got a message that evening to that effect along with, "you are better off anyway the tree was growing in the retaining wall" and  "oh what a cool beehive" (yeah - I'm glad nothing happened to it), and "stop by the garden, I'll give you some turnips." Turnips. He thinks he can placate me with a bunch of turnips?  
I'm wondering about the tree in the retaining wall too - the wall is/was fine while the tree was there. Better than the other end with no tree which has completely washed out. What is going to happen now that the tree is dead? He's not going to remove the stump (it looks like) and so what will happen when the thing rots? I'd like to know. Not to mention that the view has been completely disrupted. I hate looking out the back window now.  It is very depressing. And there is no quick fix to this. Who knows how many more years that house will stand there vacant? Even if I decide to grow my own tree there it will take years to fill in and cover things up again. Most of the time I can forget it - until I go outside. Even Jacques looks forlornly in the direction of the lost tree. Then he looks at my as though I could do something about it.
Well, life does go on, and so does house maintenance:

 

I had a few hours today to do a bit more on the porch. So I did another little section of it. Things go much faster with an electric sander! But I'm running out of sand paper...

And because he's so cute... I'm including a picture of Swee'pea. I've been working on my Guild of Book Worker's exchange project. While I was trying to photograph my bathroom floor, this little ham came in. He's not usually this photogenic. Maybe because the radiant heat was on and the tiles were a cozy 85°F?