Snow Guards and visitors

Here's just a little update to show the snow guards we've added to the roof - the shot below shows that garage roof, but we installed the same system on the house roof as well. You can imagine what problems that snow falling from the house roof could do to someone trying to come to the front door, so we decided to get this taken care of before fall. These guards will hold the snow back and let it melt slowly and come off the roof in small pieces - rather than in one huge avalanche! Chris Stearns at Alpine Snow Guards http://www.alpinesnowguards.com/ was so helpful. We really like the fact that the guards installed fairly easily and they use the same clamping system that was used to install our PV solar panels. Thanks Chris - they look great!
The next three pictures show you some of our recent visitors. We've had a lot of deer coming through in the evenings lately. We have a momma and two fawns that have walked through a couple of times. The littlest one stopped to chomp on my new red chokeberry shrub, so I had to shoo them along! Here's one roaming solo . . .
One of the reasons we wanted to plant a raingarden was to assist with wildlife habitat - especially birds and butterflies. Below is what I've really been hoping to see. I'm not an expert on insects, but the plant in the picture is Butterfly Milkweed - also known as red or swamp milkweed. These plants are critical to the Monarch butterfly. I don't really know if this one in the picture is a Monarch, but nevertheless, the butterflies are loving this plant!

Yes, fence me in!

Here's the updates on the fence. This is the general fence we have along the property line. Right now you can see the baseball fields quite clearly, but after a year or two, we'll have some landscaping to soften and screen the view - AND give us some privacy in the back yard. This fence just gives us a backdrop for the landscaping and keeps the baseball kids out of the yard. The first picture below is from the ball fields looking back onto our property. The second one is a view from the back porch, and the last one is another close up of the baseball field side of the fence. It's just landscape timbers and 5/4" PT decking painted barn red, and 2"x4" welded wire fencing for the infill.

Rain Garden

Here's the semi-completed raingarden. We will be adding a few more plants and it will obviously look much more established in a year or so, but you get the idea. We'll also be switching out the small stones for much larger ones around the perimeter to highlight and outline the shape of the actual rain garden. The back part outside the stones is not really part of the garden, but receives mulch anyway until the Elderberry shrub hedge grows up and fills in.