And then there were two

On Tuesday morning I took the dog out for a walk before work and I noticed a shallow hole in my front yard. It looked like a dog had been digging in the yard (or an army of squirrels). When I looked down I saw a lot of dirt on the sidewalk and it was the good dirt, the birthday present dirt* so I kind of scraped it back to the yard best I could with my flip-flop, then continued with our morning walk.

When Yoshi and I round the block from the other direction I happened to look at the yard again and noticed that one of my plants was GONE! That hole, that's where the plant was. I had three 'Autumn Joy' Sedums in the front about 8" apart in a triangle and now, there are just two of them. First, "who steals plants from people's yards?" Really, who just pulls an entire plant up? They aren't little anymore either, about 8" across and a foot tall. Then, "Who steals 'Autumn Joy' Sedum?" It's a great plant for zone 5 (where we live) and probably a lot of other places too. It's easy to grow, easy to maintain, looks cool in the winter, and easy to propagate. Just take a shovel to the plant every few years for a whole new plant. Ask anyone with an established clump and they could give you some without disturbing their landscape. So, people give this plant away, but someone stole one from my yard.

There isn't much I can do about the thievery. Nothing else had gone missing, and I can easily replace the missing clump by dividing one of my remaining ones. But it's the principle. It's things like this that make you want to put a fence up around the front yard.

*2 years ago my parents gave my a truck load of dirt for my front yard to amend the dead soil under the compacted lawn.

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Fence Plan

So my big plan for this weekend - besides cleaning up the house - was to get the brackets installed on the posts at the proper heights so that next weekend I could measure and cut all the 2x4s. I went to the store and picked up the brackets that I chose to use then on Sunday went outside to put them up. After measuring and running a string line I realized that the brackets all had to slide over the top of the metal pole AND the brackets were all supposed to go 4 inches below the string. I ran into a problem when I couldn't tighten the bolt in the bracket to secure it to the pole. I tried both a screw driver and pliers (just now I realized I should breakout the socket set and try that) but really that thing wouldn't budge. I could get it to un-screw, but there was no advancing the sucker. I'll go back with the wd-40 and the socket set, but it's just frustrating that something as "simple" as tightening a bolt can seem like an impossible task.

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Things that happened…and didn’t

Car: I was pulled over and received my first ticket (ever) for driving with overdue (very overdue) license tabs. Apparently I never updated our address on the car registration when we moved and so never got a reminder, and apparently never look at the license plate on the back of the car to notice the little MAR sticker. I got the ticket in MAY. They guy who pulled me over was rather nice, I felt stupid and maybe mentioned that I would have remembered if they sent out e-mail reminders.

I was also rear-ended on the freeway in a construction zone. I have seen more than the usual rear-end collisions in this area while the section was resurfaced. It was the usual kind of rear-end accident. Traffic was really slow, stop and go and go faster, go slower, STOP…but the girl behind me didn’t stop fast enough. She was more shaken up than me, but then her car was more of a mess than mine. I called my insurance company, just in case and I talked to her insurance company. I took the car to their recommended appraiser, although there really wasn’t serious damage, and got a quote for the repairs. Approx $745 because they can’t repair bumpers anymore, only replace them and I say “yes, go ahead and order the new bumper” to the place that did the appraisal because it isn’t like I have my own personal body shop. But then two days later I talk to the man from the other insurance company and he says, “we got the estimate, do you want to have the work done there or do you want me to send the check to you?” Oh! I didn’t know that I could just take the money and run. Like I said, the damage to the bumper was cosmetic, and what the hell, the front bumper looks worse from my 2005 winter run in with a trailer hitch in an icy intersection. I took the check, canceled the repair, and continue to drive the car with the damaged front AND rear bumper, with a ever growing crack in the windshield. Classy.

House: We have some new cabinets & a lot more counter top space in the kitchen now. The cabinets are installed, the counter is installed. There is nothing in the cabinets yet (it’s only been 3 weeks and counting) but soon. I still have some puttying and touch up painting to do on the cabinets. I also need to strip and wax the floor in the kitchen to hopefully repair the lovely scratches left from the cabinet installation. That will happen after I finish wiring the new outlet for the microwave and maybe after I run new wiring for a hood fan and countertop appliances so that someday I could install a backsplash. You know, if I wanted it all done in 2 months, I would have paid someone else to do it. But I didn’t and won’t because that shit is easy, it just takes time. Time that sometimes is otherwise occupied by watching a marathon of Burn Notice or Law and Order or something embarrassing on the Family Channel because it is 85 degrees inside my house and 100 outside the house and if I move I will be miserable. I wish it was Fall already.

Yard: The fence (posts) are in. Ok, really, that’s the hardest part (have I said that already) and the rest of the fence should be super easy to finish – 1, 2 days tops. If I could finalize the design, decide which fasteners to use to attach the supports and find a day when another person is there to help me attach 7.5’ 2x4s to the posts. Really, though, it’s almost done. The rest of the yard is doing okay, the front is filling out. I need to get a picture so we can do a before and after since last year in July it was just dirt. The sunflowers are almost blooming outside the bedroom window and the grass in the backyard is so yellow and dry that is disintegrates when I walk on it. Just the way it should. We have been watering the food gardens and the front plantings, but not the grass because then it would need to be mowed and most of it is getting ripped out anyway and I’m lazy and stingy with water. I really do want to have a nice back yard but there’s still no patio (because the fence isn’t done yet) and what was grass (not very nice grass in the first place anyway) is now dusty and crunchy and the summer is now officially over.

Theatre: I say the summer is over because auditions for the Fall season opener are today. And for me, that means the end of the summer. There will still be time to finish the fence (don’t worry) but I no longer think the patio will happen this year. Maybe I could get my gravel path in the front finished though, that would be satisfying. Both Paul and I participated in the endowment fund fundraiser, which showcased all the musicals in the coming season, last month and I sang There’s No Business Like Show Business in a floor length body-hugging sequined evening dress. Somewhere there are pictures. Tonight I will be singing When a Merry Maiden Marries (The Gondoliers) by Gilbert and Sullivan for auditions for the Pirates of Penzance. It seems like the snow will be here anyday (oh, except it's still 92 degrees outside).

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...and now it's June.

I’ve been spending more time outside now that the weather’s nice, although it’s been a little warmer than I prefer. Normal high temp should be 70 degrees, and we’ve been hitting 80-87 in the last week. But all the plants are in the ground for the year. I even planted all my seeds last night after work, some annuals and some perennials. I’m never confident that the seeds will come up, so it’s extra exciting when they do. The purple double coneflowers that I got from Costco this spring had a 20% survival rate. I actually surprised that the one did survive since I’d resigned myself to the complete failure of that planting. I keep thinking I should take pictures of the yard to document it’s progress, but never do. I can say there’s a lot more plants now than there was before and most seem to be doing fine. Remembering to water is important, of course. I’ve buried soaker hoses on both sides of the house and the parking strip, using a sprinkler in the front and hand watering the vegetable patch. I just got a micro irrigation kit from my mom and I’m really excited to set it up in the vegetable garden and the front yard. I’ll still have to attach the hose and set the timer, but I think the quality and coverage will be so much better. Right now I find it hard to water the corners of the yard without completely soaking the sidewalk.

I have a lot of projects I want to work on, and just found a new one today. But I need to prioritize. I started the back yard fence a month (or more) ago and I’m still not done digging all the holes. The hole are the hardest part. I expect installing the posts will only take part of a day and attaching the wood will take a day. Darn posts are taking a lot more time. The most I got done in one day was three holes and I had to quit because I was feeling faint and a little wobbly. It was the heat, not the physical exertion, but I’m still only 50% done. Other planting activities have taken priority because if I didn’t get the food garden started we wouldn’t have gotten anything before the frost comes in the fall with our short growing season. Now that the plants are in though, it’s back to the fence. Except for the projects I still need to complete to get our 50% kitchen remodel done on schedule.

The new cabinets are done and primed, but need to be painted. They’ll be installed the week of the 22nd, so everything has to be ready by then.

• Paint Cabinets (2 coats paint, 2 coats poly)
• Install new 20Amp outlet for microwave (we will be able to use the toaster and the microwave at the same time if we want!)
• Board up doorway to create new broom closet ( I keep forgetting about this task)

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Spring Cometh...almost

I did yard work 2 weekends in a row. Both times it rained. This Sunday it started snowing again. Just little bits, but after spending several hours in the rain digging dirt, moving rocks and transplanting bulbs, I wasn't going back out in the snow. So I didn't get the compost cage built yet but I have a big plastic bag full of yard waste just waiting to be composted. Last weekend I decided the grape arbors had to go. They were both falling down and really the vines were just out of control. Using only a small pair of clippers and a 2.5 lb sledge hammer (I found it faster than the hammer, which would have sufficed) I reduced everything to a pile of decrepit lattice and a separate pile of grape vine branches. I left the stumps in the ground because I don't want to completely remove the grapes, just redirect them. Hopefully the root system will use its energy to send up new suckers that I can train and control.

After spending some time in the back yard dismantling the grape arbor I realized that the roaming neighborhood dogs spend plenty of quality time in our yard over the winter. I don't remember it being as bad last year, but there was a lot of decomposing dog poo left when the snow melted. I realized that in order to keep our vegetable garden safe and "clean" the fence needs to go up now.

I've been putting off the fence project. 'Cause fences are big, and hard (well digging the holes in our rocky soil is hard) and procrastination is easy. But the fence is important and will allow us to use the back yard and grow things other than dead grass. I have plans. Plans that involve a lot of digging. Step 1: Build fence. Step 2: Plant Vegetable Garden.

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