Tuesday's News

Well, I did spend some time outside on Sunday. I couldn't NOT! Last year, I spent a good chunk of time researching flower seeds for the landscaping here . . . followed by spending a good chunk of money to buy said flower seeds. But, they arrived juuust at the wrong time - so close to being too late in the season to plant. And so, not wanting to risk throwing away all that "seed money" (hardee-har-har!), I decided to wait until this year to plant them.

I took quite a few hours on Sunday morning to compile 18 pages of notes (!) on all of the flowers so I'd have a good reference for what each pack of seeds requires for planting, light, etc., etc. Then I headed outside.

Because it's a big job, I've been taking smaller sections of the yard at a time to first rake up all the scrap accumulated from the winter (WHERE does all that stuff come from?!), then moisten the soil, then plant, then ready the medium I've mixed up for the covering, spread that covering, and then finally water again. I got the slate walkway that leads off the side door to the hand pump and the area underneath the clothesline seeded with creeping thyme.

The highlights I made for the creeping thyme in my notes are: "super-vigorous, lemon-scented . . . months of deep pink blooms and heavenly fragrance . . . completely covered in 1/4-inch bells of carmine-pink for months on end . . . butterflies love it!" So, I can't wait to see the seeds start to sprout! I'm sure the following picture won't hold jaw-dropping excitement for you, my dear reader, but it should suffice as the first installment of a series of Then and Now shots of the landscaping.

Yesterday morning, Tom announced that he was "back" (physically) and that he was going to go cut and haul wood. So, off he went to the logging site that's accessed through our back 40 (they're done now and have pulled out all but one piece of their equipment - yayyy!). As you can see in this picture I took yesterday, things aren't quite GREEN around here yet!


Last night, he went into town to the court house to take a proficiency test that's required for a state job he's applied for. It lasted from 7:00 - 10:00 PM (?!), and Tom said that it was exhausting and HARD. Almost all financial word problems such as: if Mrs. Smith is 72 years old and receiving Social Security but has also received Section 8 housing assistance at 1/3 of the state average pay-out, what can she expect her monthly checks to be? (I just made that example up, but you get the drift.)

Okay, I've been side-tracked by several things since I started this post, so I'll sign off for now and post it. Enjoy the day!

Question of the Day

I only stumped one person with the latest Question of the Day regarding the horribly unpleasant heatwave we just went through. It is indeed over, and it lasted ten l-o-n-g days.

Yesterday was beautiful with a high of 76 degrees and a cool(er) breeze, and so, during the cool part(s) of the day, I actually got outside to plant three more trees/shrubs from the continual landscaping project.

Today is a bit too warm again, and I was sweating like a pig this morning when I was out checking the batteries, filling them with water, and running the equalization. (And that was in the - relative - cool of the garage . . . although it's NOT very cool out there because it's not yet insulated. Just another [!] project to attack one of these days.)

16 June 2007

We've been living La Vida Loco lately (NOT by choice), and so I haven't had the chance (or, quite frankly, energy) to post any pictures recently. Matter of fact, it's been some time since Tom's had a chance to work on the slate walkways, too, so they remain - for the time being - unfinished.

That in-construction state always causes an interesting game of Russian Roulette on the nights that we return home after dark and have to pick our way from the garage to the house without tripping over and breaking an ankle on some large, unplaced piece of slate thrown hither or thither. And that's not even to mention the five empty holes in the front yard still waiting for me to get trees planted in them. Hmph - I guess that all sounds kinda dangerous (and a little stupid), doesn't it?

27 May 2007

Tom's work on the front walk made of slate continues. It's slow, tedious, HARD work . . . but it looks SO PRETTY! This shot is taken from out the front entrance/door.

12 May 2007

While the roof was being worked on, Tom continued with his "Slate Detail" . . . taking a break from the front entrance walk (which is looking gorgeous, by the way) to build steps down to the bird feeders off the boardwalk (which connects the two decks and runs parallel to the diningroom and livingroom of the house).

6 May 2007

It's hard to mentally concentrate with the forest fire raging, but I'll write about that later.

We had another wonderfully productive weekend - aside from me battling a little bug that slowed me down a titch. Tom has been doing an amazingly beautiful job laying out the slate for the front walk and landscaping. This is the start of it, off the front steps (which still have to be finished with stone, themselves).

6 May 2007

Landscaping was the main order of the day. Tom's been hauling slate after work, and I got trees and shrubs when I was in Duluth last week. Here we are, trying to put it all together!

6 May 2007

Today was a beautiful Sunday - although too dry and windy, as usual - and Tom and I (and ALL the hairy kids) spent the day outside doing yard work. If you look, you can see Miss Kitty taking the alpha position on the 4-wheeler . . . surveying her domain.

29 April 2007

The problem with new construction is that your (previously green) building site is reduced to nothing but dirt, sand, and gravel. So, where there were once so many trees that you had to - ironically - cut them down to build your house . . . there's now nothing but bare ugliness.

So now, we are in the first stages of RE-planting and landscaping. Over the last week or so, whenever there has been a spare moment, I direct my dear husband to the next tree or shrub location, and, with pick-axe and shovel in hand, he digs me a big, deep hole. Unfortunately, from all of the heavy machinery running back and forth during the last two years, the top layer of gravel is like cement . . . so Chainsaw Tommy has been getting one heck of a work-out lately!