Progress!

At first, there was the inevitable panic about the colour. It had the unfortunate characteristic of looking just like the original colour already on the fence when wet--but drying much, much darker. As one passerby commented, "You sure can see where you haven't painted."

Indeed.

Except...driving by this morning after taking hubby to work...my heart skipped a beat. There it was....shining golden in the bright morning sunshine.

Nonetheless, I knew there was a difference. There had to be. The children painted the entire street side of the East Side Fence yesterday. They really did a fantastic job and I am quite proud of them.


I wrote this up last night with the intention of taking the "after" picture this morning, in the same light as I'd taken the before, on Sunday.
Can you see a difference?


Monday being the second day of his weekend, my guy set up his brand new saw



and cut all the boards we need for the three 4x4 raised beds. (That's the west side fence above. No, that string isn't holding it up--that's for the raspberry bushes. ) He even put one half of one together for me.



Nice. (The Rose which shall likely be moved is where the red ball is.)

My daughter cheerfully did the part of the fence there behind the Highbush Cranberry. I'm glad someone in this family is so tiny! Her next challenge is to paint in behind the elderberry bush--just to the left outside this shot.



And there I left it for the day. I figure it would have taken me the last 1/2 of the third can of paint and only a couple of hours to finish. But, we stopped.

Why?
1) Nine to four is probably all the child labour laws will let me work my children.

2) I wanted a shower. 'Nuff said.

3) My daughter had a soccer game at 6:15 and a piano class after that. (Have I mentioned she is sitting her Grade One piano exam in a few weeks? All you music types out there can probably better appreciate that than I can)

4) I was dog tired.

Mother's Day. My Way. (or not).

So, a few weeks ago, the hubby asks me, "What do you want for Mother's Day?"

And I said either;
a) Please finish the fireplace mantel. (It is now his project because it involves the manly Art of Cutting Wood. (I hope I said please.)
b) Let's get the fence painted.
c) Build me the raised beds I want for planting this year.
d) All of the Above.

"That's not much," he replied, meaning, "that's nothing very special."
Except that it is.
It is.

I woke up bright and early this morning, excited. Something was going to happen. We were going to get one of the those projects finished.

For the fence, I just needed to pressure wash the street side of the East fence-- Oh and the inside South corner. The boy and hubby had already done 3/4's of the inside East fence--trying out the new pressure washer my Mother had bought for the family for Christmas. The West fence I was going to tackle Another Time.

So bright and early this morning, I snapped the befores.

Steetside East Fence: (Yep. A wonky panoramic).



Inside East Side South Corner, this morning:

(Yep. That pile o'debris from last summer grew under the snow, I swear).


I really thought the kids and I would paint the fence while hubby built three 4x4 raised platforms for vegetable beds. We have heavy, horrible clay soil. With raised beds, I've been told, I can happily ignore it. The instructions were posted here. In February! Gah. Fortunately I had the forethought to save them. Hubby read them over last night. He said, "Looks simple enough." Whew. Unless my man feels totally confident about the way I want a project done, it doesn't happen. So, thank you, Ree!

Those were my plans.
I would paint, he would build.

The boxes, by the way, are going to go here: eventually there will be four in a foursquare parterre-ish pattern. I just have to move the Rose. She won't like that and neither will I.

This picture is from the end of June last year.



This is the picture taken this morning. Yes, we've been sledging again!



But before washing the fence, I realised I should whack down the long grass now growing along the bottom edge (and no where else, of course.) That meant getting the weed whacker going. No problem, except I broke the string in the first two minutes. And then hubby informs me, he needs the instruction manual to rethread it. He looked in his workshop while I looked in my files: it t'were nowhere to be found. Eventually, he announced he had rethreaded it. After I finished that ten minute job, (which took all morning), I had him haul out the pressure washer for me. Man. I do not want to re-live the horror of trying to get those hoses connected and the thing plugged in and the thing moved outside. Then, inside. And upside down. Yep. It happened. Hubby eventually figured out there were screws to hold the handle onto the machine. All he had to do was tighten them!

And here's what I did to the crosspiece bit of fence in my efforts to remove the mold. Or mildew. Could've been mildew. Whatever it was--it's gone now! Gone with the chunks of wood.....



It was three o'clock before we set off to go to Rona's to get the boards for the raised beds and the paint for the fence. And just as hubby was about to back down the driveway, I cried, "Stop!"

"I forgot the paint swatch."

And then, of course, I couldn't find it.

What I did find, (hooray for no Spring Cure this year!) was last year's two cans of paint purchased as "testers." I made good and sure I picked the proper one--I held both up to the bits of the fence I painted last year. I held it up to the bright side and squinted. I held it up to the shady side (much easier to tell, by the way) and I even got my man out of the waiting Jeep to confirm my choice of can--and we headed off.

The trip to Rona took four hours. (Everything takes four hours.) Well, OK, not quite, but long enough that the next priority was plainly stopping at the grocery store to buy a pre-roasted chicken and a tub of potato salad for supper and come home and eat.

And so, the fence now?


Yep. In the evening light.
Except the skies are grey and threaten to rain. So, maybe it's OK.
Except it would have been something special to have had it painted.
It would.

Weekend Project 1

We finally rented a chainsaw! We were able to get a 16" electric. The big decision for the husband was whether to buy one (for $60) or rent. We probably spent 1/2 the day discussing it.

Nonetheless.

Before:



After:



The stump is still in the ground, though. I'd thought we could just grind it down below the surface with the chainsaw, but I didn't know that a chain saw musn't come in contact with the ground. (Gums up the gears or something.) Oh well.

Project #2 will be planting my poor wilting dogwoods sometime today.

Boom Da Da Boom

The husband has completed re-routing the eavestroughing at the front door. Here it is as of yesterday:



Just for fun, let's compare that to the front door which greeted us when we returned from vacation in late May, shall we?

(The eavestroughing on the right ran down the trunk of that tree, the left didn't function well at all.)

I'd still like a new light fixture--and figure out a more satisfactory solution for the abysmal house numbers. Any thoughts?

The $3.02 Pot of Cheer.

Sometimes it pays to procrastinate! The geraniums (2) were 1/2 off--$1.50 each. They had no blooms whatsoever. I talked to another shopper and asked her if they would be OK.

"Yeah, sure," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I've never seen a geranium not bloom."

She was right!

They looked kind of lonely when I planted them, so I went back the next day. The "grass" was on sale too but when I got to the till, I couldn't remember the price and the cashier had trouble ringing them up, so she sold them to me for a penny each. I tried to find something that would fill in the front and cascade down the front of the ugly pot (a freebie from my Mom) but, truly, there was nothing left.

Just as well. It acts as a door stop for the back yard screen door.

Progress Report

I'm afraid this gardening thing has been all-consuming. I imagine it would be fairly boring to anyone not similarly obsessed, so I haven't been posting much. However, some small progress has been made!

1) We've started ripping out the sidewalk that runs in front of the dining room window. After taking down the tree, it was very obvious the whole thing was heaved and sloping back towards the house.
Before:


The husband just wanted to "see" how easy it would be to remove it. This is what was accomplished after we took turns going at it with a sledgehammer and a crowbar for a few hours.

(Aurelia's job was to collect the small stones which fell out of the rubble and stockpile them for me.)

This is where we are now:


The whole project had me in a panic for a few days. We must have a path (or "access") leading round to the side of the house here for the meter reader. The city recently extracted all the gas meters and placed them outside our houses. I'm thinking of creating a gravel path--but I'm not entirely sure just where, yet. And I realised that as long as there is access and something shoveled in winter, I don't need to decide its precise location just yet. That's good, because I still don't know what I'm doing!

2) I'd say "we" but I'm really not helping with this at all--the husband and Caius are in the process of removing my strange front bed--the wooden edgings to be precise.

Here's a "before"--looking at it from the front door, out to the street.



Here's what they've managed to take out so far. Those are 4x6 and 4x4 foot posts, bolted together.

There's about a third of it yet to go. Not sure what we'll use the wood for.

I've applied herbicide to all the vegetation and now I need to cut it down.

It really isn't much, but it's hard physical work, so I guess it can't go any faster than our aging backs and muscles allow.

Oh, 3) I did get this tiny section of fence painted!



In case you think it still looks pretty goldy, (as I do) here's a comparison:

That's it for now.

Never Before Seen...

....on my dining room floor. Light, that is. Natural light. From the sun.

First, a photo from earlier this month.



The next is from this morning, after the husband has pruned off most of the branches. Yes, that is a weird "top" to the tree--as in--there wasn't any! It had been cut off years and years ago.



He took a break and then pruned a few more. We attached a rope near the top.



I can't believe I didn't get a shot of the 1/2 hacked, chopped trunk. Can you believe he went at it with a kindling axe? The blade is no more than 4" wide. But I was scared 1/2 to death from the moment he hit the heartwood--too scared to think of the camera.

We tugged at the rope a few times, then he chopped, I tugged, he chopped, tug, chop, tug, chop, until finally, it was time to call the boy to help us. A few knots in the rope gave us a good grip. There was a CRACK and....



And so, at last, one very tired husband enjoyed the westerning sun on the stoop for the very first time.



One heck uva good day's work.

That Settles It!

Turns out my third unidentified plant is.....(drum roll, please) alfalfa. Alfalfa! So, I'm growing vetch, clover and alfalfa along with some rampant Campanala.

It's all coming out. Out, I say.

(Do you suppose they are seeds long lain dormant from the era, 50 years ago now, when this was a prospering farm?)

I pruned some more off the remaining Thujas in the front. You can almost see the little roof over the front door, now.

Today:

(yep, that's the pile of pruned branches in the front left foreground, there.)


Seven weeks ago, when this madness began:



The husband says we'll work on the tree by the dining room window tomorrow (the one you can't see, behind the Birch tree).

Yes, I know, (for those who have been following the paint saga) I was supposed to pressure wash the fence this weekend. But it occurred to me at three am this morning (two and one half hours before the appointed time to get up so I could have the car to fetch the ruddy thing) that the raspberries are just beginning to ripen. I thought we should probably wait until the harvest is done--about another three weeks or so.

So, meantime, I'll be sawing trees and hauling on the crowbar--when does gardening get fun?

Decision Time

I have a front bed which is weird. It is a long, narrow thing--thirty feet long on the left of the sidewalk and, mysteriously, only about 8 feet long on the right. The whole thing is barely two feet wide.

I've seen one or two other beds like these, set back from the road by a mere five feet or so, as is mine, and they're a welcome sight. They're like a little run of cheer and I sincerely appreciate the gardener's thoughtfulness to brighten up my busy day.

But I live on a dead end street. There's no need for this drive-by bed.

Taking it out is going to be a major pain, though. It is constructed of 4x4's securely bolted together and at least two deep. I took the crowbar outside with me when I went to show the husband what we were facing--and he wasn't even tempted!

I've been waiting, in part, to see if any of the flowers in it are worth keeping (other than my daisies).

I've now indentified three of the flowers in it:



This is vetch. The photo is from June...it has just finished flowering. It spreads by way of rhizomes, I believe and it is extremely difficult to erradicate without resorting to that which should not be mentioned in organic gardening circles. It fixes nitrogen in the soil (in fact, the faved fava bean is related) Vetch, reveals google, is an "alternative forage plant." Maybe I should just get a cow? or I know! A sheep. I'll send the wool to Zooza to knit something for me!

This pretty pink thing is clover--yes, the clover you find in your grass. It is, however, taller. About a foot taller.



Interesting tidbit: it is poisonous to sheep and cows when wet with dew. So, I guess the sheep shouldn't be let out to eat until after breakfast!

The next one, also purple:


Bellflower--or Campanula rapunculoides.

This, too, is an invasive weed.

The bed is currently keeping them contained, but I'll take that which should not be named to them, I think. It's a shame, the bellflower is pretty--but I don't want it crowding out and destroying plants I'll actually pay for!

There's at least one more to identify. Then I'll know what to keep.

And the delphiniums, it seems, are self-seeding annuals. They may not even be back next year. So as for colour scheme, I think I'll keep working on my original red and white (with touches of gold/orange) theme.

Behind Can No. 2!

It's not really a fair comparison--the first pictures were taken while a storm threatened and the light was dull. The second, after the storm had passed and in cheerful sunshine.

No. 1 is on the left and No. 2 on the right.





Here's the other side. You can see both:



Are we there, yet?

How 'bout this?

Sorry it's blurry. The paint is dry, now. It looks darker irl (it was supposed to dry darker)--but I don't like it as much. It's just sort of bleh. But I'm curious--is it looking darker to you?
(PS--rain still threatening.)

Stay tuned--as a result of Anne and Wende's input, I went out and got a quart of my second colour choice, the browny/goldish green. I'll post the results (once it has dried, this time!)

How do you test colour on a fence?

It's a serious question!

As I mentioned a long, long time ago, it will take 10 gallons to put one coat on this monster.

I bought a quart (or litre, as I should call it) to test out my colour pick. What do you think?



(Unfortunately, the sun wasn't shining when I took the after pictures--it's threatening rain, again!

Here's a picture from a wee bit further away:



And here's one of the other side: the one folks see when they walk by.



I like it.

I went to paint behind my High Bush Cranberry, but there's mould on the fence. A quick google search has led to the conclusion that I'll need to power wash the fence with some sort of cleaning agent. (sigh).

What do you all think? Is this the way to go?

I'm a wee bit worried that the barks of my tall-shrubs-pretending-to-be-small-trees won't show up in winter. But I don't quite see any way around that given the colour of my house.

Weekend Project

The beast is out of the ground.


It took a week. One wheelbarrow of dirt a day. We never did find any large "taproot" holding down the poor old thing.

Now I have to decide: how much of the tree right at the front do I want removed?
If we take it all, I will miss it dreadfully.

Gulp: I made the call

An arbourist should be out in a few days to look at our "sick" tree and see if we can save it.
(It's the one in the foreground with all the dead branches).

And he'll give us an estimate for the cost of going from this:


To this naked thing: (minus the new paint and shutters, of course.)


Please, please let us be able to afford it this year.

Dessication

I sprayed this section with that herbicide.

This is day 4 after application.

Nothing seemed to happen. There was slight yellowing, but nothing significant. I was thinking I'd have to spray again, when the husband announced he was going to "whack some weeds."

Fine, I said.

And this is what he did:



So, now, I have to wait until it all grows back up again and start over. (Though I did spray what was left and it has yellowed somewhat.)

Good thing I'm not in any great rush.

(However, I am a bit confused about what exactly one is supposed to do after everything turns yellow--just yank it out?)

Monday's Ten Step Project.

I finally bit the bullet and planted one of my tomatoes.
(I didn't have enough soil for the second.)

Step One.
Agonize about the containers.

Step Two.
Stop worrying.

Step Three.
Put in rocks. The bag of "soil" said to put down gravel or pebbles. Too late.


Step Four.
Wrestle wheel barrow out of garage.

Step Five.
Moisten soil.

Step Six:
Put soil in container.


Step Seven.
Call daughter to help.

Step Eight:
Have helper hold plant in container while she mugs for the camera and put in more soil.


Step Nine.
Put coffee grounds down around the top to discourage the dog from eating the plant.

Step Ten
Water thoroughly and take final picture.


Let's hope it survives and gives us lots of juicy, sweet, large, ripe tomatoes.