"R, do you need some help?"

Today was another beautiful day, unusually warm for a St. Paddy's Day. I can remember many a St. Patrick's Day having ice storms and at the very least snow on the ground. Today was in the high 60's, as was yesterday.

Our plan is to get all the outside yard work taken care of at the Torrey Road house before moving on to 'The Gear'. The weather in March is typically unpredictable and I would rather not start an outside project only to have it snow or rain right in the middle of it.

So we have been enjoying the weather by raking and raking and raking. We filled 10 trash cans and 9 paper yard waste bags full of leaves and twigs. I would estimate another three full days and the Torrey Road house will be ready to fertilize the lawn and then it is on to 'The Gear'.

Today's project was not one of those big projects but required several trips to get the right tools. Last fall during a wind storm, one of our Purple Robe Locust trees split and we lost a major limb. In an attempt to keep it from dying, R drilled a hole through the split part and using a threaded rod, large washers, and a couple of nuts (not tree nuts but nuts as in nuts and bolts) was able to pull the loose part and the trunk back together.

But not before he received some supervision from Mr. Peacock."R....do you need some help?? I saw something like this on HGTV while I was sitting on the fence looking in the window at the TV."

"R...I don't remember it taking this long. It was a 30 minute show and well.....this is taking like 3 hours."
"I give up.....he won't listen or let me use the tools."

"Listen....I'm not just a pretty face.....I know things.....I watch TV, I greet the mailman, and I let you and the whole neighborhood know when the loud UPS and garbage trucks are in the area."
"Oh look at him....R thinks he's something in that blue shirt."
"Nobody does blue better than me. I mean look at me.....I'm purdy."

Right after I stopped taking photos cars started stopping and we nearly had an accident in front of the house. I love it when a car drives by and then you hear it quickly stop and turn around only to drive by real slow. Some even completely stop causing the oncoming cars to quickly hit the brakes.

Mr. Peacock is extremely nosy. Not much goes on without him knowing it. Sometimes he just lays down and watches. The other day he was on the deck with his tail feathers down. R let the two kitties out for their morning walk around the bird feeder and they promptly walked right on his tail feathers.

If you are wondering how he keeps those feathers straight up in the air, here is a photo of Mr. Peacock's infrastructure.It's not every day that you get to see the back end of a peacock.