This view is taken while standing just inside the "neighbor's" property, looking along the junkyard fence. "Neighbor" gets quote marks around it because the property is empty and we have only rumors about who owns it. The tumbled fence in the foreground is on their property; the tree marks the line between their property and ours, and will become our shady sitting spot this spring.  I hope to sheet mulch the area in coming months, and plant grass and flowers and a lawn swing there shortly thereafter. There is a nest of empty branches Miri pruned off just below the tree (so dark you can barely see it)  and you can see how wild -- and in its way, beautiful -- the tall grasses look from here.  Except for the area around Miri's oak and pistache trees, this end is relatively free of grass burrs.  Notice the red soil, and how large the bare patches of ground are between bunch grasses -- it is very dry out here (annual rainfall about 14 inches). On February 1st we finished weed-whacking, raking and burning the old fence along this line.  The edges of the tree got scorched, but the tree itself didn't burn.  29 January 2004