A Retrospective. 1. The Front and Back Yards, 2007-2014

In some ways: so much changed!
In others, not so much.

Makeovers inside the house tend to be decorative in nature, low budget and somewhat easily changed.

Changes made outside, though, tend to take much longer (sometimes several years) and are somewhat more permanent. They also tend to be done by my husband!

However, there are a lot of pictures--and it may take a while to get through the whole post. I advise a good beverage.

Housekeeping Update

Now that the 31 Days of Housekeeping are over, I've pretty much stopped dead in my tracks. Well, OK, that's an exaggeration. I've done a little something almost everyday--but not the full blown routine every single day--which is what it takes to keep this place from overwhelming and paralyzing me (which leads to more mess, more overwhelm and more paralysis).

So, today, I vowed, I would do absolutely every little thing on the list and get caught up. Of course, getting caught up means doing more than what's on my little list; chiefly, more loads of dishes and more loads of laundry.

So, I weighed myself (distressing: the numbers really are trending upward.) Made my bed. Oops, forgot to swish and swipe the upstairs bath!

But I did manage the downstairs bath and did about three loads of laundry or so. I picked up most of the main floor. (The desk is still a mess.) Where I fell down, of course, is in doing the dishes.

Not to worry, though, I'll have them done before I hit "publish post." Honest.

What's left?
The fun stuff: the One Essential Task.

I thought it might be cleaning up the soffit now that the stenciling is done.


But no.

Then, the part for fixing the bathroom faucet was delivered. That came much more quickly than I'd expected. I thought I might get that done.


But no.

I suddenly remembered that I had purchased 2 bags of tulip bulbs yesterday-- 1/2 off. (Less than 24 hours in my possession and already I'd forgotten!) There had been another customer beside me when I'd been considering them and I'd asked her "What do you think, is it too late to plant them?"

"Not if you can dig a hole," she said.

I've always intended to have tulips encircle our flag pole. (We inherited it with the house.)


So, I marked out an encircling horseshoe with twigs and spray paint and felt very clever.

The ground was frozen.

Solid.

Daedalus (my husband, not his real name.) came and stood on the shovel. (I did too.)

But no.

So, I quickly changed my plans and decided to plant them in the boxes in the back yard. We amended two of them this year, so in order to leave the other two boxes free for working in next Spring that's where I decided to plant them.


Actually, I only got as far as planting one box (4'x 4') with one bag (28 tulips). The soil wasn't frozen solid--it was just frozen in big chunks. So, I did a lot of whacking with the shovel. Gardening at my house is not for wimps.


I also attached these house numbers to the boxes so we can keep track of them. (#1 & #3 were amended this year, an odd year, and #2 and 4 will be amended in even years. Of course, we came up with this genius plan after we'd already gone ahead and double dug the planting boxes: thus the weird order to the numbers.)

Now I've another reason to look forward to spring--and winter isn't even here yet.

Garden Planning

Sorry to have been incommunicado. I had an allergic reaction to something last Thursday night and I'm only just getting back on my feet.

In honour of spring, I thought I would let you know what I've got planned for the garden. It will be a while before I can actually get outside and do anything about these plans, however. (I haven't set things up to start seeds indoors.)

Here's what the garden looked like this afternoon:


Not a whole lot to work with, yet!

Here's a photo from last fall when we finally got all four planter boxes built:

I didn't plant anything in the two front boxes. Those are weeds.

This is looking east. North is to the left of the picture.

Last year, I planted just two of these four foot by four foot boxes. This year, I have plans to plant all of them. I hope I'm not being too ambitious.

Box A: (NE Corner, upper left): onions, potatoes and nasturtiums.

Box B: (SE corner, next to the playhouse): spinach, beets, carrots and parsley.

Box C: (NW corner, bottom left): 2 zucchini plants and peas.

Box D: (SW corner, bottom right): 2 tomato plants and marigolds.

Like this:


I've had to juggle start dates like mad for our Zone 3 garden, but it looks as though I should be able to sow everything but the spinach, the marigolds, tomatoes and onions after our first frost free date which is in mid-May. (In fact, the May long weekend celebrating Queen Victoria's Birthday is known as the "Garden weekend" here.)

I'll purchase the marigolds, onions and tomatoes already started and plant them in mid to late April. Apparently, that would be a good time to sow the spinach seeds, too.

It's hard to be patient!

Any thoughts from experienced gardeners out there? Have I got too much in the SE box? Have I got some crops paired up which shouldn't be? Help and advice appreciated!

Added: I'm unable to comment, again. (sigh). I don't know what's going on. Building the planter boxes was easy: I had my husband read the instructions at the Pioneer Woman's Website which I've found again, here: Build your own raised beds..

Fall Nesting Party

(This is our Highbush Cranberry by the garden. It turned early this year: there are still tomatoes on those bushes!)

Wow. It really is fall out there. We've had grey skies and rain this past week. We even turned the heat on as night time temperatures dropped to (plus) 5 Celsius.

Brrrr.

But, hey, the best way to warm up?

Go to a party!

This one is hosted by The Inspired Room.

So, here's my first project: the Fall wreath.

Nothing special or unusual.

One of those messy grapevine wreath thingys,



leaves, (just a wee bit glittery for my taste, but it shouldn't be too noticeable from the sidewalk)


fruit,


and a berry garland from Micheal's. (Took me 20 minutes to unwind the thing!)

I invested in these tools last spring:

It was just a simple matter of wiring everything in.

I like it. It isn't fancy or elegant or even unique. But it is cheery. So cheery, it brought the sun out for a few hours this afternoon just to peek at it.

Bird Bath

I saw this idea on a blog somewhere out there. The blogger was actually much more clever than I: she used an old glass lampshade as the bowl with an old wire planter as the base.

If you know what project I'm referring to and you know who did it, please let me know and I'll link up to her post.

That was a truly clever interpretation of the idea: but not the first. The birdbath in this charming front yard was the first I saw.

(I didn't keep track of where I got this image. If you know, please let me know so I can give credit.)

I reinterpreted the enamel bowl. But not by much:



I found a wonderful wire plant stand:



I bent out the top wire loops by hand and placed the enamel bowl into it.
Then, we put a rock in it to give the birds a perch and to weigh it down.



I has a certain je ne sais quois, don't you think? My husband calls it "Bird Brain in a Bowl"

What do you think? I'm soliciting opinions. Is it finished? Should I spray paint the black base white to tie it into the bowl? Should I paint the bowl? Both? Or just leave it, in all it's rustic "as is" glory? What do you think?)

For no other reason than I want to play with some new friends, I'm linking to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.

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.

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.

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 Project

I tried rearranging the BBQ on the "patio" today. I wanted to get it out from under the kitchen window so I put it on the opposite side of the picnic table. Didn't work.

This was my view.


Can you say hemmed in and claustrophobic? And the view from the kitchen window was horrible.

I lived with it for about an hour, reading gardening books at the table and feeling antsy.

Then I moved everything back.

The Sunday Evening Project

I am bone tired. It's a good tired though it far exceeds the results I got for all my effort. No matter.

I was clearing out some concrete blocks (rubble left from dismantling my mother's worn out stoop last June) from the weed patch near the house (I'd put them there to hold down cardboard in a misguided effort to smother the weeds last year) when it occurred to me I could use them to provide a nice little ring around our high bush cranberry. This high bush cranberry, to be precise. How long could it take?



It didn't take long to ring the tree, actually. However, it occurred to me I should probably dig out the grass immediately underneath it. (This was the point of the exercise, really--to provide a border for ground cover or mulch so the weed whacker wouldn't have to go in there to get the inevitably long grass which always clings tenderly to the base of it.)

That took ages. I stopped mid-way through and realised I was working in the only sunny spot left in the entire back yard! (Though of course the sun went behind a cloud when I snapped the picture).


At this point, the husband wielded the spade with much zeal, digging far deeper than I'd wanted. So I probably laid those darn concrete "stones" three times more after that. But here we are:


There's only a partial second row. I can go to my Mom's and get more rubble.
Now I need to decide: cedar bark mulch (we have it) or low growing ground cover (we don't)? Any ideas?