Daylight is waning...

Every day the sun is setting a little bit earlier. They say it will finally start to cool down and, *gasp* even rain soon! This last weekend I spent Saturday shopping and playing video games. But Sunday, I spend working on the front flower bed. The left half of the bed is now done - tan bark gone, soil turned and drought tolerant perennials and bulbs added. I also added a couple of perennials in the back yard

Before:

After:

I reused some of the "granny brick" (much to DH's dismay) to set around the spigot and sprinker valves, and I plan on lining it with cloth then putting gravel in there for a small spot to wash off garden tools, hands etc. I think it's cute and a nice way to re-use something that would have gone to the dumps. He hates the granny brick. But I won this one. :)

I hope to complete the other front bed next weekend, before it gets much cooler and before the rush of holiday's begins. Starting the first weekend in November, I have something going on just about every weekend. And gosh, I haven't done any canning, or started my apricot liquor yet! There just isn't enough time in the week for everything I want to do.

Well, I guess I'll "work" now. Strange environment we have here now. It's 8:30am, and I'm the only person in the office. I think morale is a bit low. Not long now until we find out our fates. Keep your fingers crossed for "transitional" status!!

"I'm not dead yet!....

...I think I'll go for a walk!" That's the story with this plant, if you recall from a previous post, we had cut down this diseased bush with the intention of figuring out a way to remove it's stump so we could plant something different there. However, the plant feels happy and has other ideas. It is bringing forth new life from the wreckage. Who am I to argue with mother nature? The new growth is healthy and non-diseased thus far.



The camellia stump has shown no such come back, which is good because I have plans for that spot, so that spot is still coming out. And when I get bids for some random things I'd like done in the yard, removing that stump will be one of the things.

The other thing (or shall I say person) that is not dead yet is, well, me. I'm exhausted! We are both feeling it, but mostly me ;). We have finished most of the prep: Sprayed, scraped and sanded the entire house; washed the whole house down and painted it with peel stop primer. Now we are doing the last of the prep. Sanding here and there, restoring rotten window trim, fixing the broken porch railing, removing fixtures...etc. before we start priming. We bought the paint and primer today. The paint store guy tinted our primer dark enough that we'll only have to do one coat of paint over it (hopefully). Here's a little picture of the front as of today. Note the color patch where I 'marked my territory', since another neighbor is painting and I didn't feel like doing the color waiting game again.

Numerous neighbors have come up to tell us how rad we are and how they've been watching us work our asses off and are very impressed. Everyone so far loves the color choice. I got into a long conversation with one neighbor about how ugly the house is during the prep phase and it led to a discussion of yards wherein I apologized for how hideous our yard is and explained that we'll be ripping it out and replacing it with a garden soon. The lady got all excited and actually high-fived me and said they were planning to do the same, which was kind of nice to hear.

Anyhoo - I suppose I should be doing stuff...so off I go!

Cheerio mateys, happy Labor Day!

Post 2 - "The Bad and the Ugly"

I thought I'd share a little taste of the pain of prepping our house to paint. This doesn't even show the walls! It's pretty brutal. Suffice it to say, none of the previous paint jobs were done properly and we are paying for it...especially in this heat.






But when all is said and done, hopefully we'll have a nice little green cottage...a non-craftsman version of this beauty. (BTW the neighbor's went with light green, the SAME light green as our light green patch that I showed in a previous post in fact! It looks fabulous, but we are happy just the same as we kinda like the loden green better).



OMG - I don't think we're ever gonna finish. And when we're done, moving on to the front yard before the rains start. I've got a good game plan in mind and have been googe-image searching cottage gardens and xerioscaping and driving/walking around looking at other yards. I have it pretty figured out. I think I'm gonna hire someone to do some of this shit though. We have so much to do! I don't feel like digging up the lawn myself, or having poor Joe replace the water main with copper (we figure, while the yard is dug up, might as well). So much work!

Little projects and a wee harvest

It was a lovely weekend, the weather was fresh and smoke-free. We did bbq and go see the new Batman (wow, I like it!) with some friends. Other then that it a great time for a few little projects around the house.

The first of which being the other front yard shrub that we decided needed to go - the overgrown camelia. We were slightly more reluctant with this one, as it was quite healthy and had probably been in that spot for 20 years or more. But it's placement was poor...it overgrew onto the porch, rotting the porch railing. And to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of camelias (we had tons when I was growing up, as our land was fairly shady - and I tired of them) and would not turn to them willingly unless I had a very very shady yard to work with. And we are planning on putting a new garden window in the kitchen window above it.


So out it went. And once it was gone I felt less bad about it. The best news is that DH has finally completely come over to the dark side. Or the green side as it were...he came in the other day after raking the front yard and said "I'm so f'n sick of lawn". YES. He's seen the light and has agreed to let me rip up the front yard and replace it with a garden. I've been plotting and will start drawing plans soon. We are waiting until after the windows and paint, and just before rainy (crosses fingers) season so it will take less to get it established. The only argument now is fenced vs. not fenced. I prefer the former, he the latter. We had a rental house that had a wee picket fence around the front yard, and I liked it.

In other projects, I decided to refurbish some old patio chairs my gramps made a long time ago.

They were pretty rough, so I washed and sanded them thoroughly.

I've managed to get one of them painted and I think it turned out pretty nice. I still need to fashion some cushions for them:

I also took an early morning trip to Home Depot, only for a bag of mulch, and found just the right chairs to go with my patio table...on sale! For 13 bucks each. Holding out for the right deal is the way to go. Finally I have an actual patio dining set. It inspired to me rearrange my patio set up. See my new dining room? I just need the umbrella...which again, I'll wait for the right deal to buy one:

What better way to enjoy a new patio set then with a bbq? And for the bbq we enjoyed a wee harvest. Other then zucchini and lettuce, my garden has not yet been a big producer. But it is my first real expiriment and so I'm enjoying what rewards I'm getting. And though this harvest was indeed wee, DH and I both thought the corn tasty, and the cherry tomatoes and carrots were amazing...in my humble opinion. The carrots especially!

Heehee...that's almost my entire corn crop...I have 4 or 5 more ears that I can pull off and then its done. I don't think I'll grow corn next year. I'd need to plant it much differently to make it healthier and in order to do that I'd block sun from other beds. Or perhaps I'll sneak some into the front yard? I'm planning on a mostly ornamental, drought tolerant cottage garden for the front. But I do plan on throwing in some edible perennials in the spots of brightest sun and leaving some small spaces here and there to plant veggies and annuals each season. Yay!

Well well, here we go back to another week of working. BLECH! I so wish I had a couple more days off. It will be a long week. And then a weekend away (visiting mom). Then next week DH is traveling for work! He'll be in the Boston area (jealous!) all week. Poor thing is so nervous! But I am too...a whole week w/o him! I'm going to be lonely. Perhaps I'll paint a room to keep myself busy.

Cheers, everyone.