Garage Path Project

I know blogging has been light lately but it has been a busy May around here and will be for a couple more weeks.  This past week I spent much of my free time tending to the narrow path alongside our garage.  Since we moved in I have done nothing with it other than knock back all the weeds and ferns that had taken up residence.  Now that they were eliminated you could see how ugly it looked over there.

I spent much time on my hands and knees scooping up the lava rock that covered most of the area.  The top layer was easy, the bottom 2 to 3 inches was rock that was embedded in mud above the plastic weed barrier that was put in place about 300 years ago or so.  The rock is needed because the garage has no gutters and the rain needs to fall somewhere without eroding into the ground.  On the other side of the garage the water drips onto the wood that edges the lily of the valley we have in that flower bed.  After scooping up a bucketful I then rinsed the rock in the wheelbarrow with the hose a couple times before dumping it on a tarp in the driveway for further rinsing, and rinsing, and rinsing eventually deeming it clean enough for reuse.

Once I got all the usable rock out and had it to bare earth, I leveled it as much as I could before putting in the landscape fabric.  I used 10 year standard fabric, doubled up.  Now, many people don't like the fabric and prefer to use plastic as a better weed barrier, but I really wanted the water to absorb into the ground more easily.  Sure, we may still get some weeds eventually, but not many and I can just spray dead what does move in.  Since the area the rock covered before was not quite the width of the space, I bought stepping stones to put in the area.  All in all, the stepping stones worked well to take up space and the reused rock was just the right amount to fill in the area around them.

It was a big job that I chipped away at all week, but I'm glad it's done and I do think it looks much nicer than before.

Spring Has Sprung

I took just a little time off this week starting with today and I managed to be pretty productive.  First, our refrigerator wasn't refrigerating very well so I had to call a repair man first thing this morning.  He was here this afternoon and fixed it rather quickly and easily.

I also made a trip to the hardware store to get supplies for the garage side project, and to get some flowers to plant in our pot our front.  Kate didn't want red or purple so I got white petunias and a couple other plants that looked kind of neat.  I messed up, though, the orange leafy thing is supposed to be for shadier areas.  Oh well, I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.  Overall the house front looks very nice this spring with the plants we buy and the tulips and little white things that Kate planted last fall.  The evergreen bushes are still looking a bit rough from being pounded down by snow all winter.  That's another project, tying them all up and making them look nice.  Before next winter I'll have to try something to prevent that happening again.

The bulk of the day was spent digging up and cleaning rocks along the side of the garage and I'm only about a third done.  The rock has been there so long there is much dirt along with the rock on the plastic that was used as a weed barrier, so I have been rinsing each bucketful in the wheelbarrow a couple times then dumping it on a tarp in the driveway for more rinsing.  I'm glad that I'm reusing this rock but getting it out and cleaned is a pain.  It will be a couple days before I can get back at it, but I hope to have it done by Saturday night.  That may be a pipe dream, but it would be nice to have it done already.   How's your yard shaping up this spring?  Anybody?

Happy Mother's Day 2013

To me, well, everything can remind me of a song - any odd and old song.  I drive my wife nuts with that because I can - and do - play that song within seconds sometimes, otherwise I may sing it, and unfortunately for her I can't sing to save my life.  So, naturally, for a Mother's Day post I was looking at some of the 'mother' songs off the top of my head and , oh, they're all out there - good and bad- including:

• John Lennon - Mother
• Pink Floyd - Mother
• Danzig - Mother
• Lita Ford - Mother
• Buckethead - For Mom
• and even Jimmy Dean - IOU

I'm sure if I thought about it I would find tons more songs about moms.  We all have one, we love them, and we try to do them proud.  Well, Mom, knowing me and you may or may not agree that we're all a bit crazy so this seemed more apt to me*:

Slade - Mama  I'm  Weer all Crazee Now


I love you, Mom.  I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day and even more wonderful retirement with Dan.

*Okay maybe that sentence does or doesn't make sense, but it was fun to say out loud to myself last night when I drafted this post!

A Spring Update

It has been a week since I've posted so earlier today I just started drafting some things and have added as I've had a mind to all day.  There is nothing big going on, so these are just recent thoughts and happenings:


We just missed having a snowstorm in May.  100 miles or more due west was a north/south line of snow that just moved north upon itself giving many places a foot or more.  Thankfully, we just got some rain and temps in the 40's and no snow - kind of odd to be thankful for that in May.

Our yard and plants are progressing, at about the same rate as this Spring, slowly.  We've had some blooms but the best is yet to come.  We went out today to look at plants and price some items for other projects.  We did purchase our usual hanging plant medley for the front of the house, though we did not find the type of petunia that we want to plant in the big pot out front, but more plants will be in the shops soon and there is plenty of time for that.  There has been no new action in the garden since the last update at that site.

Kittens are now cats, over a year old and big, well, Basil is pretty big, Hamish is adult size but smaller.  For brothers they are two totally different cat types, physically.  They still love the cat tree and spend much of their time on it, sleeping, scratching and playing.  They are more at our level and love being pet while they squirm around in the top area.  Being able to look out two windows from it also keeps them occupied.

We had a party last weekend for our friend Terry (and her sister Becky), who was going to the Kentucky Derby this weekend.  It was fun with friends, but I stayed up late and sent out an email to a few of those friends with links to the few videos I had posted here that they are in.  In the process of trying to upgrade an old video on a post a few years ago I lost the original post.  A bad mistake, but it wasn't much I lost, maybe 100 words of drivel just to post the video - which is reposted bigger now.  Lesson learned that I should already know:  Don't edit or post when drunk.

I got in touch with an old, good friend recently.  He seems to be okay, even though I hear the tales of woe every time we do talk, but he seems to actually have his life in as much order as any of us.  But he does have kids, while we don't, so I know he has a lot more going on every day than I do.  To him I might be livin' the life, but really it's just a different kind of life.  Anyway, contacting him is weird sometimes because I feel like I'm interrupting - remember that I don't digitally connect (facebook, twitter, text), I'm still old-fashioned that way.

I'm sure there is more that I am forgetting but there is a lot on our radar this Spring, things like getting a new dining table, planning our next two parties coming up soon, yard and garden projects and more.  Everything in due time (and dollars).  Highlights, as always, will be posted.  Have a great weekend, all!

PTFO

Hair Today...

I've mostly had long hair ever since I was old enough to fight with my parents about it.  Recently though, I felt I wanted to clean up a little bit for spring.  This is the result, still longer but healthier and neater.  It's just hair, it will grow back - and so will my goatee, I also shaved clean for the first time in probably almost two years.  Okay, maybe not that interesting but I made my wife take before and after shots (I was sure to wear the same shirt for reference) so she said I better post them!

Planting And A Late Start To Spring

Yesterday Kate got outside and planted all the plants that had arrived in the past week, including all the new creeping phlox around the tree area.  There are many other plants around the tree but the cool temps are giving us a late spring this year, and they have barely come up yet, if at all.  More rain and lower than normal temps are expected this week yet again, but it has to get better sometime.  Right?


Garden pics and comments about yesterday here.