An Abhainn: July 1st in Lincoln

July 1st was of course not a holiday here, but we celebrate anyway. I put the Canadian flag out on the front of our house as I have for the past 10 years I have been living here. I took the following pictures on Friday of our house. It was a little overcast which gave us a break from the 100+ degrees Fahrenheit weather we have been having. Plus, pictures can be a little clearer when the sky is overcast anyway.

Below is our front porch looking out into the street. We live in an old neighbourhood and our house was built around 1907. David bought it in 1987. The house is located in an old inner-city neighbourhood called Francklin Heights, which is a locally designated historic district. David missed his calling and should be a landscape architect. He knows the common and Latin names of all of the plants, which grow where best, what works together, which needs how much sun etc. It's like living in an English country garden. He is constantly changing the arrangement and experimenting with new plants and moving old ones. The garden is just about weed free and everything thrives in this climate, so he has created a virtually maintenance free garden, but he works in it every day anyway.

The front porch is ell-shaped and the front door is at the side of the house

Spirea bushes all along the front

We have the tallest tree in the neighbourhood, a silver maple in front of our house which must be about 80 feet tall. These next 3 pictures go together vertically to show the whole tree, starting at the top.

That is our garage at the end of the driveway. Narrow lot.

At the end of the driveway, you go through the picket gate to the yard

David even has flowers growing on the gate

Overlooking the back yard from the second floor is a sleeping porch, a typical room for a house this age around here. From the days before air conditioning, people used to have these porches usually on the east side with lots of windows for cross ventilation to try to sleep through the hot humid summers here. I can't imagine how they survived the heat even in these rooms.

David and I built the back porch and pergola ourselves about 8 years ago

David's Koy pond

Feeding the fish. David planted all of the trees in the yard, including the large River Birches.

We got this sculpture last summer. He is made from old scrap tin from a gas station sign. We named him Murray. He moves around the yard a lot and keeps the squirrels, rabbits, raccoons and possums on their toes.

Bishop's Weed, one of my favourite plants, probably because we have it at the River too.