And There Were Roses... (And Indian Girl Tents)

It seems that one benefit to getting rid of the overgrown arbor vitae is that the two rose bushes in front of the house are blooming. I don't know a lot about roses, we have a great rambler at the old place that is a white Dorothy Perkins, which is unbelievably vigorous. We never bury the canes for the winter or do anything that I've read about for ramblers, and this thing will have canes that grow nearly 20 feet a year. Anyway, there are two very old roses on either side of the walk coming up to the porch. Here is a picture of them spliced into one shot:

Anyone out there have any idea what these are? Lisa thinks they may be in the primrose family as they seem to close at night and open up again. The white ones bloomed first and now the red ones are just starting to open up. These things look like small trees the main trunks at the base are nearly 2" in diameter. I'm wary of chopping away at the old stuff without knowing what they are, and the best way to maintain them.

Another byproduct of vigorous whacking away at our overgrown yard is a good collection of tree limbs, I'd been saving the bigger ones, and have been making various tepees and tents with the girls. Here is our latest model:

I have to think that Helen is smiling on these activities. One leftover from the estate sale was a burlap sack Indian dress that given other things we found was probably an old campfire girl uniform, probably circa 1922. A bead weaving loom and some campfire girl patches that were found with it were sold. I just found some Girl Scout books from the 1930's in the attic a few weeks ago, it seems she was an adult leader too.