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Kathryn has been taking Dakota for a few riding lessons, which largely consist of her being comfortable around horses.  She helps brush and tack up and then gets led around.  Below Ellen and Abby give Dakota a ride.

We found wild iris in our pasture.  Kathryn re-located a portion of them to our yard.

Our painted turtle, Painter, has quite an appetite and has been visibly growing.  He prefers fish worms to almost all other food and will eat them from a hand if you move slow and dangle the fish worm where he can see it.  A measure of his growth is evident in the wide light gray areas between the scutes on his carapace.

Our new foundation wall was completed.  Here is what the new north wall looks like from the inside.  The plan is to install shelving units where the two lights are shown.

Here is the view from the outside.  In addition to new blocks on the north wall the west wall was parged and new drainage was installed.  The downspout from the gutters was run into the drainage lines.

Afterwards fill was replaced and the foundation plants were replaced.

We also had to re-plant the peonies that got dug up.  We now have a 72′ row of peonies between the driveway and fence line.

Then we begin picking stone and hand raking the fill.  And there is a lot of fill – this is the view from our driveway showing the new driveway leading to the location where the attached garage would sit.

The fill forms a ‘mow-able slope’ that extends across the old driveway and nearly to the honey locust tree.

Here is the view from the south.

We at about 3/4 done picking stone and raking with plans to re-seed grass this weekend.

The north wall is removed and tarped off.  We got a little wind and rain on Monday night.  The sound of the tarps flapping in the breeze was reminiscent of camping.

The concrete blocks and sand are piled up outside for the construction.

Our foundation plants have taken a beating in this process and may not recover.  We will see.