Under a blue moon

5.9.12

Last year was the Summer of big outdoor projects.  This year we fully intend to reap the benefits of all that work.  We have been spending the last couple of weeks replanting the pots and getting the drip system all dialed in.  

Normally I do more of an eclectic mix of plants in the pots, aiming for a casual, cottagy look.  This year I wanted to do something slightly more formal and lower maintenance.  That casual look takes a lot of work!  

I have five pots that line the railing.  I planted a daphne in each one and then a mix of bacopa and calibrachoa (Million Bells) in shades of lavender and pink to spill over the edges.  I love the scent of the daphne and how it has an elegant look to it.  

I bought that standard rose bush at the grocery store.  Let's see how well it holds up.  Usually I'm not quite so impulsive with my rose purchases but it had so many buds on it I figured I would just pretend it was like buying a floral arrangement.  If it doesn't do well at least I'll get a few weeks of enjoyment out of it.  

Lots of naked cherubs in that picture.  

This is the view from my kitchen window.  Kind of a cock-eyed picture but I wanted to capture all the elements.  We hung hummingbird feeders all around the house and there was a visitor to this one while I was taking pictures.  Not very shy, those hummingbirds.

Now we can just sit back, sip our evening libations and enjoy the view.

4.4.12

Just a quick post on a quick project.  I have had this hose-bib hose hanger** for years.  Not sure where or when I got it but I've had it for about 10 years.  It started out white but years of sprinklers and inclement weather have taken their toll.

It didn't matter that it was slowly rusting because it was hidden behind a rose bush.  

When we did the landscaping work last Summer we removed all the plants along the front of the house (where the hose hanger lived). They have since been replaced with lower growing plants and the rusty old hose hanger stood out (and not in a good way).

We also did some work at the back of the house - replacing the decrepit walkway behind the garage.  

I decided the hose hanger could live back there but would need a face lift since it would be very noticeable (no hiding behind a rosebush).

This was an easy fix.  I just took a wire brush to it and scrubbed away at any loose paint and dirt.  Then I painted it with a rust inhibiting spray paint in a dark grey/brown color.  

I ended up putting three coats on the front and two on the back.  My painting skills are really deficient but I am getting a little better with spray paint.  The trick is multiple light coats.  No rushing (as I am wont to do).  

This isn't a very glamorous after shot, it is the backside of the garage after all, but I like how tidy it looks.  The hose was just in a heap on the walkway prior to hanging it.  We will fill the area with some stones to keep the dirt from splashing up on wall.   We just planted some hydrangeas and rhododendrons in the planting bed.  They are joining the azaleas that we transplanted from the front of the house last Summer.  Hopefully they will fill in quickly and provide some color and interest along the backside of the garage.  

 **I've been calling it the wrong thing for years!  It's not a hose-bib (which is the faucet) it is a hose hanger.  Sheesh.  Slinking off now....

 

9.10.11

Normally I don't post on Saturdays but I couldn't resist the date.  I love when the numbers line up like that.  

Yesterday I made my friend Keith come over and pick apples with me. Our two trees have been very prolific this year and the apples were starting to jump off the trees.

I have no idea what the varieties are - one tree produces apples with a vaguely Golden Delicious flavor to it and the other one has tart apples on it.  Neither are particularly good eating apples but they do cook up nicely.

Luckily for Keith and me he brought his daughter with him so we made her go up the ladder and pick them from the higher branches.  She is infinitely more agile than either of us.  

Next year I want one of those old three legged orchard ladders.  I think it would a look a little more charming than our day-glo yellow fiberglass one (which is stage left, out of camera range).

I baked one pie and have a pot of apple butter simmering with my windfall.  

The pie recipe is used is this one.  It has a ton of great reviews and I like the story of how the woman's grandmother wouldn't have known what all the fuss was about - it was just her standard apple pie recipe.  And her granddaughter loves how, with one simple little recipe, her grandmother has entered so many kitchens and has joined many families at their tables.

Even though it is still in the 90's today there is a suggestion of Fall in the air.  That subtle breeze and the first of the leaves dropping from the trees.  The smell of apples cooking sure adds to that Fall feeling.  

There is something really rewarding about taking something that grew in your own garden and making something out of it.  

8.24.11

Our first tomato.  Is it from the one gallon heirloom tomato variety it took me 45 minutes to pick out at the nursery?  Of course not.  

It is from a tomato seed pooped out by one of our intrepid, self-sustaining chickens.  Of course her placement could have been a little bit better.

It's on a slope leading down to the chicken coop.  On the other side of the coop we have a veritable garden of corn and other tomato plants popping up.  We aren't cultivating those, however.  This one Rick put a support around and we are watering it just to see what kind of tomatoes it produces.  

In other gardening news we finally got the driveway circle planted. And by "we" you know I mean I picked out the plants and Rick did the actual digging and planting of said plants.  All sixty of them.  

The space has morning and late afternoon shade and direct sun mid-day.  The hardest part was figuring out how to place the plants.  We will have a crab apple tree as a focal point near the center and we wanted a variety of flowering shrubs and ground covers to provide interest throughout the year.  

We still have some filler type plants we want to put in and everything needs to grow and fill in but it looks really pretty already (in my humble opinion).  Please ignore the stack of firewood in the background.  It will be removed in the next few weeks.

We'll have to wait until Spring to get our Crab Apple since the variety we want isn't available right now.  For now we just have a stand in Crepe Myrtle to help with the placement of all the rest of the plants.  

The only problem we have at the moment is keeping the chickens from digging up the smaller plants and for some reason Belle is totally smitten with the Scaevola Mauve Clusters and wants to lie on them.  

8.18.11

I can't believe my two week, stay at home vacation is almost over. The theme for the two weeks ended up being sewing.  

Our patio furniture cushions are in dire need of recovering.  I would love to just replace them but the cushions (the seat cushions anyway) are an odd shape.  It dents in on either side at the front to accomodate the armrests.  

Finding replacement cushions is tricky - I suppose we could just get square ones and squish them in but the cheapest set I could find (and not even in a fabric I would consider) was about $50 or $60!  I have eight chairs and two lounge chairs.  That would add up.

So I decided to make a prototype chair cover.  Took two separate tries (and many trips to the fabric store) but I think I found the fabric I want and have created a pattern that works.  

Now I just have seven more sets to make.  Plus the two lounge chairs.   

I was thinking of taking them to a place that does machine embroidery and have a scripty monogram put on the back cushion but Rick looked at me skeptically when I mentioned the idea.  Personally I think it would add a nice touch.  

As you can see the deck is nearing completion.  The deck guy thinks it will be done by next week.  

In other parts of the yard....

Knock knock

Who's there?

 

4.11.11

 

I have to start this post by saying that I certainly do have the most accomodating husband.  I come up with an idea, no matter how cockamamie, and he figures out how to make it work. 

This is the view from my kitchen window. 

Let's look a little closer, shall we?

 

I don't recall where I first saw this done (old porch post with birdhouse on top) but I know that I've wanted to do it for a long time. 

I didn't want to lose any of the height of the porch posts.  Not knowing the ways of post construction I wasn't sure how that was going to work.  But not to worry - Rick knew exactly how to install them. 

Here's a little mosaic of the process.  Now since the posts were slightly different sizes (one was from the days when a 4 x 4 was actually 4" by 4") one of them had to be modified a bit so the bracket (which is made to fit a modern 4 x 4 which is about 3.5" x 3.5"). 

The larger of the posts had to be chisled away a little bit in order for the bracket to fit. 

He also had to reinforce the bottom of one of the posts since it was splitting.  Nothing a little wood glue and some carefully placed screws couldn't take care of.

 

The braces in the bottom right picture were removed after the concrete set. 

One birdhouse I've had for a number of years.  It is actually a bird feeder/bird house (the attic is the living quarters).  I got it for a song because one of the finials on the top was snapped off.  I had Rick snap the other one off and put two sparkly glass cupboard knobs on top.  Rick also had the idea to put decorative brackets underneath it to give it a little more visual weight.   

I painted the roofs of both a slate color.  One had a blue roof and the other had plain, unfinished wood. 

Now I just need to wait for some birds to move in.

 

11.8.2010

 

It was a lovely Fall weekend around these parts.  We don't get too many days like this - where the weather is cool, but sunny and the leaves are gently falling from the trees. 

No our yard is not on fire.  It was a burn day so Rick pulled a bunch of dead limbs down into a natural hollow in our yard and burned them.  It just helped add to the ambiance. 

I spent the day puttering around and reading magazines.  The day before was spent - and there is no way to say this delicately - cleaning Ina's backside.  The cochins are quite beautiful with their very fluffy feathers but they can tend to have an undesirable build up of chicken poop.  Which needs to be cleaned off because it won't go away on its own. 

So poor Ina had to be captured and wrapped in a towel.  Rick held her while I took warm wet rags and had at the business end of things.  I'm not sure who was more traumatized - me or Ina.  I'm thinking Ina.

 

Le Palais de Poulet

 

The chicken palace is done!  Well almost....We are thinking we'll put a small window in that front wall on the left.  For extra ventilation and so the girls can look out. 

My intention is to have a separate chicken palace page with all the details of the construction and some tips and lessons learned.  I'm working on that and when it's done I'll post a link.

In the meantime here are a few pictures.

My favorite part - the screen door.  The brackets came from Anthropologie and the door knob was knocking around in Rick's spare hardware drawer. 

The backside of the palace.  The nesting boxes are on top and there is storage below.  This design inspiration came from Heather Bullard's coop except hers is on the end of her coop.  Actually I have to say a LOT of the inspiration came from Heather's coop and a set of coop plans that we purchased.  We kept referrning to both during the construction.  We just made adjustments to suit our particular needs. 

The end of the coop.  Those are the clean out doors.  Sorry the picture is a little bit crooked.  I had to climb up on a weedy hill, alive with ticks, to take that picture.  I wanted to just snap and get out of there.

The inside of the coop.  Arched openings to the nesting boxes are another design idea borrowed from Heather's coop.  We ended up putting a lower, portable perch in here until the chickens are big enough to get up to the higher perches.

One of the girls checking out her new digs.  They didn't like the ramp at first.  We had to pick them up and put them in their coop.  We ended up buying some non-slip material for it and now they march up and down the livelong day (you can kind of see it in the picture below - it's a medium grey color).

I've named all the chickens only I can't tell them apart yet.  Well I can tell one of the Buff Cochins because her tail is shorter than the others, but that is it.  I'm waiting for their little personalities to develop so I can properly assign their names. 

I have Rick to thank for this beautiful palace.  He was very patient with me and my design demands.  He made it sturdy and safe and didn't roll his eyes when I walked in with Anthropologie bags and insisted on returning the ugly plastic waterer for a more esthetically pleasing metal one.  He asked me where the chandelier was going to go (and he'd hang one for me if I asked).

The girls and I truly appreciate his efforts. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Quickie post

Palace progress.  I think there might be more paint on me today, than on the coop.  I just have the primer coat on so far.  I still need to paint the inside of the coop and the back side.  I also have to crawl under the coop and paint that area. 

That ought to be fun. Not.

I will hopefully finish primering today and then I can get the finish coat on the run part so Rick can put the screen up. 

I'm thinking about growing a climbing rose up that front section.  Or some kind of climbing, flowering plant.  I'm partial to pink and may do Cecille Brunner.  It can scramble up the roof if it wants. 

With all the rain and mild temps we've been having the roses and pansies along the front of the house are doing fabulously.  As soon as the coop is done we can sit back and enjoy it.

 
 

Sweetpeas

Sweetpeas courtesy of my sister Kate and her fabulous garden.  And a special thanks to Kate's husband Robert for not taking the weed-whacker to them this year.  Oops.  Should I not have brought that up?

I think my Cannon is starting to get jealous of all the pictures I take with my iPhone.  I found a fun app called ShakeIt Photo that turns your iPhone pictures into Poloroids.   I have been having a lot of fun with it.

I am getting ready for head out of town for a few days.  My dad, Nicki and I are heading to Michigan to attend my aunt's 81st birthday extravanganza.  Both are fabulous travel companions.  We took a cross country trip to visit our sister Mary in Wisconsin a few years ago and it was a lot of fun.  Well, except for the part where my Dad and Nicki tried to drive off without me at an Oregon gas station. 

Mary is going to meet us there and we'll spend the weekend visiting relatives and my Dad's old hometown.  I guess it's Mary and Nicki's hometown too.  We moved to California when I was six months old so I think of myself as a California girl.

We are making progress with the Palais de Poulet.  And before you start questioning the "we" I actually have helped.  I helped dig the trench for the foundation.  And helped hold the posts level while they were being nailed into place.   I'm also serving as the project photographer.

Since the job foreman job was already taken:

She's wondering where the cat door is going.

We got it all framed then had a few days of rain.  Construction will resume tomorrow.  I think the roof joists are going on.

In the mean time here's the front of it.  The coop will be on the far left side.  Smack in the middle is the opening for the screen door.   The rest of the area will their run.

The chalk lines in front indicate where the raised beds and paths will be for the fenced in garden area.  There will be four raised beds inside a picket fenced area.   The raised beds will be used for both vegetables and flowers.   The path will line up with the screen door to the coop. 

 

I'm thinking I need a sweetpea trellis in there somewhere.  I better go consult with the foreman.