I got home from work yesterday after an extremely long and arduous day, despite the fact I didn’t work late at all, to see the new mailbox in and a chain hooked up to the burning bush stump I’ve been wanting taken out. I guess Mr. Ink had a long and arduous day as well!

Mr. Ink had drilled a hole right through the stump, fixed a huge long bolt through it, and put the chain on both sides. He then hooked it up to the old pick up, and I took a video while he yanked that stump out with the truck. It actually worked very well.

Though we did have to use the truck to pull the stump up to the higher level in the yard, it was so heavy. And, there’s quite a bit more live stump still in there. It worked, but there will still be a lot of digging involved. Nevertheless, major progress was made and it was an awesome start to my vacation. Mr. Ink spent the remainder of the evening carefully yanking all the dirt out of the stump and saving it, a process I personally will never understand. Now it’s a stump that’s waiting to be washed in the rain.

Meanwhile in the garden the first lilies have bloomed.

I can’t decide if I am disappointed with these or happy. They were supposed to be all dark. Maybe next year? Or, maybe there’s black lilies still in there, and these are lilies that are a surprise. I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see.

The rose bush is blooming beautifully too.

I guess you can see behind there that there’s road construction nearby, causing a traffic jam outside our house during rush hour. We actually were worried about yanking the stump yesterday, thinking that we may distract tired drivers causing an accident. It’s happened before when we were doing less interesting tasks in the yard.

As for knitting, I am done with my second clue in the starting point mystery knit along.

I still don’t really know where she’s going with this stole, though I hope it’s not how I have it currently laid out! Adding that extra color sorta messed up what could look like an interesting diamond.

Now it’s time for more vacation tasks. Talk soon!