For the past few days I've come home from work and immediately gone into the back yard to stumble around in the dark and see if maybe, just maybe, anything had changed. This evening I finally got lucky.

Scattered around the perimeter of the yard, in the freshly de-weeded areas beyond the paths, are dozens of pots holding a vast assortment of green things. There are trees and there are bushes and there are little shrubby things that are quite possibly rosemary or even day lilies. It's almost impossible to make them out in the dark, what with them all having dark colored bark and sitting in dark colored pots, but occasionally a silhouette would appear against the night sky and I could do my best to imagine what it might be. The two tall evergreen things are most likely the coastal redwoods, and there was just enough light for me to make out the little tag on the one lone tree sitting in the middle of the path, away from all the others. My little white peach tree, sitting there, looking so bare and fragile, soon to be planted with pomegranate and tangelo and walnut and apple and all the others.

By the end of the week we will be one whole heck of a lot closer to having our back yard complete. Granted, the worst of it isn't over even with all the planting of trees and the spreading of bark that will be commencing shortly. After all there are two entire areas that must eventually be covered in paving stones, and another arbor to build or buy, and once those are done yet more shrubs and flowers and trees to plant. But this gets us a lot closer, and oh how anxious I am for morning to come so I can go out and see the new arrivals as more than just dark shadows in an evening shrouded patch of yard.