From the kitchen window in my little white house on the hill, as I fondly refer to it, I could see the bounty from my handiwork spanning across my isolated backyard.  On one side, my flower garden stretched like a colorful patchwork quilt along the six-foot-tall white picket fence all the way back to the towering oak tree in the far corner.  There, a new wooden swing hung from one of the thick branches above a large patch...