The weather was glorious and I was out in it most of the day. I built a fire very early this morning and kept warm as I wrote the previous post. Then before lunch I headed out and bought some accoutrements for the yard: ferns of various dispositions to begin placing around the periphery, and some Irish moss, which I don’t think is a moss at all but still is a pretty ground cover. That’s going onto the little mound in the middle of the labyrinth. I will keep it watered and let you know how it survives.

Then I did a lot of small things, none of which need concern us here but one:

I went over to my brick pile and began extending the brick edging from the lower part of the yard.

What you see here is where the bricks define the entrance to the “men’s room.” It’s an intriguing gateway; this photo doesn’t do it justice. It just leads into a quiet area next to the bamboo, and all it is, is a corner of chainlink fence.

But the impact of the brick edging is very nice indeed. The two clay pots hold candles, to help light the unsteady their way. (There are other clay pots hung from the fence within the grotto itself.) You will also notice the terracotta pipe, the lingam, guarding the entrance.

I will have to set the bricks into the ground at some point. Spring break is coming up.

No new news, just snow:

First, as it begins to snow.

Then, as it’s more or less done:

And the long view:

Someday it will snow enough to get a really pretty shot. But I thought this was a good beginning. (Notice, too, how the grass is really coming along.)

Behold: grass!

A small shot, but you can see the green beginning to arise beneath the straw.

It actually has gotten greener since yesterday, and by next week I expect to have a good start on the lawn.

Of course, this is probably the winter rye, which sprouts fast and is an annual. The actual grass probably hasn’t even come up yet.

Still, it’s a start, and I think it will go a long way to showing others who remain unconvinced of the whole venture that it will be a quite lovely space indeed. It will in any case be prettier than what was back there before I started, which was this:

Pretty scuzzy, actually. So in any case, the cool elegance of the labyrinth is a vast improvement.

Here’s a shot of the new landshaping I did the other day:

This is where I decided to keep the dirt level in front of the glider at least past the little oak tree.

I used some of the leftover paving stones to create a little earth dam there. It juts into the bank of the northern arc of the labyrinth, but does not touch it. I hauled the remaining dirt from the carport down and filled it in.

In other news, I went researching the availability of ferns today. I found several varieties that will serve admirably in the low sunlight and mostly moist soil in the yard. Now I just have to figure out how best to deploy them. They are not cheap.

Last week I planted a few nandinas down at the back corner. There was already one there, a “volunteer” as a lady of a certain age in Newnan would say, and it dawned on me that they would look good in a clump in that particular spot. For one thing, they would cover up the ugly job someone did, and it wasn’t me, in finishing off the chainlink fence there. For another, they would remind me of my grandmother’s back yard, which had a row of unkillable nandinas along the hogwire fence between her backyard and what used to be ours when I was wee.

I also planted some ground cover, the name of which I do not recall, on the mound in the labyrinth. It does not seem to be doing well, but that might have been because of the cold weather. Perhaps as it warms up it will revive and cover the mound with a lush carpet. It could happen.

Grass is growing in the labyrinth.

Here’s what I haven’t bought since January 1:

Books:

• Percy Jackson: the demigod files, Rick Riordan , Sort of a one-off volume in the tradition of Rowling’s Beedle the Bard, giving us short tales concerning Percy and his buddies at Camp Half-Blood.
• Percy Jackson: Book 5: The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan , The final installment of the series, to be published in May. These are great little tales.
• The graveyard book, Neil Gaiman , The 2009 Newbery winner.
• Wabi Sabi, Mark Reibstein , The 2008 Caldecott winner

Music:

• Mystic chords & sacred spaces, Steve Roach, and Body Electric, Vir Unis , These showed up in my Pandora “New Age” station one day when I was working on the labyrinth. I can always use more labyrinth music. Perhaps I should write some of my own. Hm…
• Time Cycle, Lukas Foss , He had like his 100th birthday or something recently, some kind of celebration in NYC, and this alerted me to his stuff.
• The death of Klinghoffer, John Adams , A student production in NYC got good reviews and revived interest in the work.

And most of all:

This is the Take-Away Tray from the Museum of Modern Art. It was featured in The Week magazine on their little Consumer page. I like it for the back yard, both for toting drinks and for moving around the dozens of votary candles necessary for evening activities. However, for $90 “on sale,” it is definitely on the Do Not Buy list for the time being.

I’m also not buying updates to iWork and iLife; a complete upgrade to my Adobe DreamWeaver suite is also waiting for a paycheck or two this summer.

Here’s what I have bought: tango lessons, and a couple of dinners out, and a few presents for friends who needed them. Some materials for the ongoing labyrinth project. Not bad.