A Garden Project, continued

I was on a slight hiatus from blogging. First, I was busy outside, then I was bored, so, I drove here…

What? Where do you go when you are bored?

It isn’t too bad, less than a 10 hr drive. I was there for 2 days, and drove home in time to get my kids back this weekend. I fully intended to blog a bit there, because there have been several things recently that leave me with a lot of material to write about, but I only took the iPad, and I forgot my keyboard at home, and I don’t like writing anything substantial with the touch screen.

Anyway, I spent last weekend working on my gardens.

Here is the “before” picture of a small garden between the sidewalk and the house.

I have no idea what those green bushes are, but they are all the negatives of a vine and a bush, and none of the positives.

Those things were climbing up BEHIND the siding. And they are ugly and spread, and look worse when you trim them, and if your neighbor is inconsiderate and lets garbage blow all over the place, they are really handy garbage catchers. Not one of the main things I look for in a plant. So, we had to dig them out, and by we, I mean I watched Aussie while telling him what to do. I have several hunky pictures of Aussie working on this little project, however, he doesn’t want to be identified. So, you will have to settle for this picture.

The love of my life

Anyway, we woke up Sunday morning and decided we needed this project. We went to the garden center, and piled 1,700 pounds of material into the truck. (And by we, I do mean we.) Then, we paid for it, and pushed it all out to the truck, where we picked up and loaded the same 1,700 pounds of material. You should have seen my truck, it looked ridiculous. We drove home, where we then unloaded 1,700 pounds of material from the truck. And then we moved them for the last time, as they were put into place.

Would you believe there is actually a sidewalk under all that dirt?

Aussie did an AMAZING job. He happens to be a bit of a perfectionist, which means it takes him forever to do anything, but when he does, the results are incredible. All those blocks are level. I would have just stacked them and hoped for the best. All the old dirt and mulch and ugly plants were loaded back into the truck to be hauled to my parents. Then my poor truck needed washed.

The car wash floor, that was clean when I got there. My truck is still muddy and filthy, by the way.

Now, for the finished project!

In my infinite wisdom, I started this project during on eof the hottest weeks in our history. My poor plants.

I am SO happy with how it all turned out.

A Garden Project

This was the front of our house yesterday.

I was looking through a home improvement magazine once, and I found a “how to” for a fountain. I thought it was cool, but, not much else.

I believe the last Christmas that my grandma was alive, and bought Christmas presents, she gave my sons a small bench. It was really cute, and it’s come with us through three moves now. But, my kids really are too big for it. It’s been repaired a couple times, and for quite sometime it just sat in the weeds in front of the house, decaying. This weekend, Aussie and I pulled all the weeds and trimmed back the trees. I decided, since I don’t have my kids this week, I was going to do a project, and I was going to make a fountain.

First, the bench needed taken care of. My dad had sprayed it with red stain years ago to try to protect it, but, he wasn’t careful and sprayed the metal as well. But, even that stain had faded, and the wood had aged. I didn’t get an original before pic, but, I’ll post where I started.

If you know me at all, you will know, I almost NEVER tape things off to paint, I’ll just be careful.(And it never works that way) But this was special.

Yesterday, it rained all morning, and threatened rain all evening. But, I painted anyway. Thinking I could move the bench if needed. Eventually I did move it to in front of the front door, where it would be covered. I removed the tape..

I am so glad I kept that old table cloth! See how aged the wood looks?

Then I decided to start staining the wood. I was really pleased with the color combo.

Now it just has to dry.

This morning, I was looking forward to sleeping in. Instead I woke up an hour before I normally do, and couldn’t get back to sleep. So, I got up, and I went out to dig a hole. It was then I realized, I wasn’t digging a hole, I was chiseling out a circle in the ground with whatever sharp objects I could find. An hour later, there was a hole.

Now, comes time for the kitchen things…the thing holding the water is a $1 mixing bowl from Target. The thing holding the rocks above the water is a baker’s cooling rack. I bought the pump at Lowe’s. It said use either 3/8″ or 1/2″ tubing. I picked 3/8″ and it floated right out. So, I wrapped duct tape around it and made it fit.

I hauled the bench back out to the front of the house, and brought out the watering can. I set it all up. And now, the finished product…

Ok, not quite the finished project. I need to hide the tubing and the cord better. And, I’m thinking maybe a smaller watering can, what do you think? And I am contemplating a small stepping stone leading to it. An “in memory of” kinda thing, for both my grandma and the baby I lost several years ago. I always wished I could have done something for him…maybe this…using the bench my grandma gave us. What do you think?

Self sufficiency in the suburbs

I have been trying to lose weight (and failing miserably I might add). But, I know the conventional knowledge is that you need a lifestyle change or you’ll get it all back.  Luckily, I love fruits and veggies.  I love fresh ones. I grew up with my parents who had two acres, and on those two acres were 2 sour green apple trees, 3 cherry trees, a mulberry bush, and a pear tree. If you wanted a garden, there was room for this. I moved to my own place, and we had an acre, no, we didn’t have a garden, but we had really great soil.  There are many reasons for not having a garden, but, I must say, I regret it now.

Because now, I live in a housing addition. Now, my yard is all clay soil. Now, we have a small lot, and the back half is not only sloped, but mostly covered with patio, deck, trampoline and swimming pool.

No this is not my yard, all the toys here are blue, but you get the idea.

I like the idea of being somewhat off the grid, of growing my own food, of raising chickens. There are several problems with this plan.

1.See above photo.

2. I don’t think the home owners association allows chickens.

3. I tend to kill plants. Oh, I know I’ve gotten better but years of this:

It’s supposed to look like this, right?

Have me more than a little nervous.

3. Finally, that whole off the grid thing…I’m marrying this guy

Ok, not THIS guy, the one I’m marrying is better looking.

Whose office looks like this:

Who does this for a living:

I don’t think he is going to go off the grid willingly, or at all, for that matter.

So, I got a book about self sufficiency in the city. It has some interesting stuff in it. But, that stuff costs money. I basically just want to dig a hole and plant things. But, apparently that is too difficult. So, now I need to decide how much of my deck I want to give up to try container gardening, and I need to convince the boyfriend to help me make raised beds for the plants. I wanted a compost pile, but apparently they stink and the home owners association doesn’t like that either.

You know, I honestly understand why he bought this house, and the things I complain about made perfect sense when he was a single 25 yr old man. He didn’t want a big yard to mow, he liked the slopes so it wouldn’t flood, the water would run right off the yard. I know he fully intended this to be a starter house, and I know he didn’t know his starter family would come with the expansion pack. And, I know people and their needs and their desires change over time.

I graduated 10 yrs ago with every intention of being a pilot, living in NY, not even getting married until I was 30+, let alone have kids. And now, I am perfectly content as long as I can get a coffee once in awhile, I have a library card and some place to write while the kids play. I want to marry this man, be a stay at home wife and mom, home school the kids, and raise chickens and vegetable. This should be simpler.

But, in all honesty, I really have nothing to complain about. We both made choices that were right at the time, and it may take a little time to make the changes, but, things are still generally pretty good, and everybody is happy, so, I will only vent on here a bit about the crappy soil.

Plus, I wanted to play around with putting pictures in!