Pacific Northwest yard adventures

It is nearly June, and the forecast just keeps looking like this:

Everyone hates it, except the trees (and me, secretly).

 

Before we bought this house, the previous owners logged the whole side yard, which apparently had been full of enormous old-growth Western Red Cedars.  Shortly afterward, our neighborhood imposed a ban on unnecessary tree-cutting, but it was too late for our yard.  We replanted with 50 tiny Douglas firs we bought from the forest service for only $25!  That was money well spent, as they have now grown into an adorable little mini-forest.

There is a secret place underneath our deck stairs that generates baby sword ferns year after year.  I have no clue how sword ferns propagate, but I keep them moving into pots, then into other places in the yard, and they keep sprouting up.  Magic!