Compost! A week ago, a big truck dumped this steaming pile of (mostly) decomposed horse manure on our sidewalk and street. I'm a little disappointed at how small the pile looks in this photo; I swear it was seven yards of compost, which is A Lot of Dirt and A Lot of Shoveling.

After spreading the compost, we created straw paths to keep the mud down, which actually works really well and has the added benefit of making you feel like you're walking around on a farm.

To fix the side porch, we had to remove part of the front porch. When Marc and I finally stopped demolition for the day, we turned to look back at our work. We were pretty quiet for a moment, and then I said, "Should we just leave that off?"

Marc said, "I was about to ask the same thing." We reckon the front door will look much better without those porch sides, and we'll get more garden space besides.

I'll post better pictures after we take off the other side.