The Avant Garden

If quality of life is determined by the beauty of an area's Spring, we Ashevilleans are a lucky, happy lot.  The Dogwoods are gorgeous this year. For example, take a look at the pic from Prom Night in the Avant Garden:
The Avant Son (Matt) and his very pretty and cool girlfriend, Amy.

It's also possible that after last year's deadly late freeze, this Spring is actually average.  Either way, I am sucking up as much of these halcyonic, pre-skeeter-n-heat days of Spring as possible.

That blue thing beside the Prom pair is a tree-ring with some blue material stretched over it. It has solar lights in it and at night, it looks like this:
In the background is the moodlighting for the mating pair. 

I went over to Rob's one day and made this not-so-great movie: 

It mighta been better had the Sun not come out and I pulled my hood on in a more suave manner. I thot it turned out quite foolishly, but that's the Avant Garden.

Strangely, I fixed the arch in the foreground with the cape, and when Rob and I walked back to see it yesterday, its cousin behind it was down. So I fixed it up:
In the bucket is a prize fern that Rob was nice enough to give me 

Rob suggested the obligatory keyhole shot and I happily obliged:
They're cousins, though I am sketchy on the details.

I went out to Bent Creek on Sunday and fixed up a few things, such as the Unphotografable Herd of Arches: 

And finally, I neglected to mention our pair of geese-a-laying on the island in the River behind the house. They had three babies and the whole family disappeared day before yesterday. Yesterday I found them safe and sound behind Rob's house:

From my backyard half a mile downstream to Rob's.Since I was shooting into the setting sun, the pics didn't turn out that well, and of course, the best one would have to have a damn 5-gallon bucket on the bank. But the goslings are cute. I hope they don't end up coyote-scat. That's not nearly as pretty a sight.