Red mud everywhere was my vision this past week as the graders rolled around the yard, removing the giant 3-trunk stump, finding a new home for it (into the “ravine” portion of our yard–it was TOO HUGE to lift), and finally smoothing and re-shaping the bank that has been a bump in our driveway since forever. 
The other task was to fill the foundation with gravel and level it out in preparation for a concrete pour this week.
What a lovely job was done by the Yow brothers, John Yow Grading and Septic of Chapel Hill, graders and earth movers extraordinaire! See how the light shines on their truck.
As a thoughtful touch, at the end of the day on Friday, heading into a rainy weekend (think: rivers of red mud avoided), they even put down new gravel on the driveway.
Check out the yow (wow) effect of these before and after shots.
So there are several plant pix in the works. Cat-tails, hydrangea (still the ones in progress from their December or January beginnings), poppies from a watercolor study, daisies, and some swampy scenes from my Jordan lake painting day.
from the five I had done.
I had no idea pitcher plants had elaborate flower forms in such beautiful burgundies and lime greens. These water studies have me thinking about layering all these elements in a larger painting–water, duckweed, tadpoles, pitchers and flowers. Hmmmm….
Which made me notice the next stand of poppies I found later in the weekend. These are at 
