I Made a Hole!

One down, three to go. Hooray. I was hoping to recycle the wood from this to make a playhouse for Coralie, but it's so full of rusty old nails that I'm not sure I can. We'll see. Also found a snoozing yellowjacket when I pried off the top plate. Talk about a rude awakening... I knocked it off with my crowbar, and it tottered around drunkenly for a long time before it warmed up enough to fly away. I thought about killing it, but decided I wasn't in the mood. Nature might get it anyway.
Speaking of nature... going to have to postpone draining the pond (again!) as someone has already laid their eggs:

These don't look at all like the eggs I usually see, so I am not sure what they are. I did see that a newt (or newts) has taken up residence in the pond now, so perhaps these are newt eggs. Or maybe it's not a newt, maybe it's a salamander... frankly I can't really tell the difference in a glance, which is all I got when it came up for air. So, a brown lizardy thing is living in my pond. There, that about sums it up. :-)
The birds didn't seem to mind my presence today... I've noticed that after you've been out in the yard for awhile, they start to ignore you and go about their business. I did see a new one, but I haven't yet figured out what it is.

I should be canning today, but somehow my energy isn't there. :-/