In all it's glory!

While I was finishing up grading yesterday, Dale finished up taking all the old, dead ivy off the eucalyptus tree in front of the house.  It filled the trash cans, but it looks so great!

It actually has more leaves and healthier branches than I thought it would - I was afraid the ivy was really choking it out, but it looks great.  And no more 'Angelina Jolie's leg' look as I come down the road. 

We are also happy about the bamboo's progress in the back.  When we transplanted all the bamboo, a lot of it looked like it died right off - the leaves turned brown and it just sort of looked like a bunch of dead sticks stuck in the ground. 

 

But looking down the row at ground level, there are lots of new shoots coming up.  Or, as one of my friends told me, "don't worry, it'll look like Viet Nam back there in a couple of months."  And it does grow fast - we looked at one of these shoots about a week and a half ago, it was about 12" tall --

 

And when we went out there yesterday, it was taller than me (about 5'6").   A couple of the older canes are fine, it seems that if they hadn't turned black but were still green, they survived the transplant better, like this one.  We'll get the old canes cut down and let the green shoots go to town.

 

But....that will have to wait until next week - my daughter just arrived (she's at IHOP with Dale having breakfast - he picked her up from the airport because I had a doctor's appt. that I couldn't change) - and so the parade of summer visitors has officially begun!  

  (oh, and I got the quilt done yesterday, just in time)

It's going to be a fun summer - and probably lots of Disneyland for us!