Right ouside my door...

This is our new house.  The sun always shines here.  The grass is actually starting to get a bit crispy from all the sunshine, but we are focusing on settling and unpacking.  You can't do everything all at once.  Since we moved in at the end of July, we decided the yard will have to wait until next spring.

If you go out on our back deck and look to the left, you can just see the tip of the lake (click on the picture for a larger view, if you can't see it).  It is in the center of this picture.  The neat, terraced garden belongs to our neighbor.  In the lower right corner, just above our deck rail, you can see the chest-high weeds the previous owners left for us in our vegetable garden.  Shawn thinks there is also some asparagus.  Here's hoping.  At any rate, I plan to put in some rhubarb as early as possible next spring.  I am really excited to try growing rhubarb again.

If you stand behind our house and look to the right, this is what you see.  Our yard is quite shallow and wide.  Neighbors live all around us, but the trees and bushes give us a tremendous amount of privacy and a nice, woodsy feel.

This is the view down into the back yard from the side of the garage.  It is rather park-like, shady and pleasant.

On this particular day it was about 95 degrees, but I decided to take the doggies for a walk.  Walking to the left, you would leave our neighborhood. I am quite delighted by the fact that every time I leave the neighborhood, I come face-to-face with a massive cornfield.  Sorry about the crooked horizon.  My camera is not working well, but more significantly, I had two dogs on leashes looped over my wrist, and it was really difficult to snap pictures before they jerked my arm around.

There are some sidewalks in our neighborhood.  I really like sidewalks!  Here you see the dogs.  They are hot in this picture, but not as hot as they got later in the walk.

One of the things I particularly love about our neighborhood is how different all the houses are from each other.  However, I didn't want to creep out the neighbors by taking pictures of their houses.  So as we walked up into the neighborhood, I refrained.  However I wanted to get a shot of the little neighborhood beach:

This little beach has picnic tables and grills, and the kids actually do swim here!  Today there is a neighborhood picnic there in honor of Labor Day, but it remains to be seen whether I will be brave enough to venture down.

Just beyond the beach, there is a path that leads around the bottom of the lake and into the park.  To the immediate left of this path sits a very woodsy house with a little gurgling waterfall in a tangled garden that is a pleasure to pass by.  But I wanted to preserve their privacy, so I did not photograph it.

As you follow the path, as I mentioned, you come around the bottom point of the lake.  Here is a pretty view:

And here is a full view, looking up towards the backs of the houses on our cul de sac.  The lake is shaped like a Y, and this is taken from the bottom of the Y, looking up. Our house would be off to the left, at the tip of the left fork of the top of the Y.  You can see the backs of our neighbors' houses, in the crook of the Y.  The neighborhood children like to ride a paddleboat out to that dock, and dive off it.

Because our neighborhood is attached to the park, there are signs like this, to keep park visitors from trespassing into "our" lake.

Shawn always wonders what kind of prosecution would be inflicted on a violator?  A night in the town jail?  Forty lashes?

All around the lake lie boats, upside down.  We wonder if they are ever used.  We wonder if they belong to specific people, or if they are there for community use.  Because of the tone of the signs, we do not mess with the boats.

This is the path that leads into the park.  I find it quite magical.

It goes up a little hill, and at the top you can go off to the left, which takes you deeper into the park, or you can go to the right, which leads you along the west side of the lake (although it is mostly obscured by brush), and ultimately back into our neighborhood.

The dogs were really hot, so we decided to stick close to home.

Here are some pictures of the rest of the walk.  I quite enjoy taking the dogs on this walk, and I think they like it too.  Although, I think they enjoy it more on a cooler day.

At the end of this particular path, you come to another place where you can turn either to the left, which would take you back into the park proper...

Or you can turn to the right and get back into the neighborhood...

You feel quite as if you are walking through somebody's yard as you enter and exit the park from the neighborhood, but there are signs like this one to put you at ease...

The dogs were panting and ready to go home, but I really enjoy these walks.  It has been a huge blessing to be able to go for walks in the park.  We are very thankful for our new location with all its beauty, nature and sunshine.

And we are thankful for some cultivated flowers that, by some miracle, survived the transition between homeowners and a full week with no water.