Don Quixote, Updated

And other pictures from Saturday, courtesy the brand spanking new Nikon D90.

Don Quixote, lookin all fresh with his Elton John circa '74 glasses and OU girl pink hat. Forget that helmet, dude.

Look at what this fabulous camera will do!! If it could only trim nosehairs...

Laiyee gave us some fresh tarragon and thyme we used with this chicken yesterday. with some black sesame seeds and yum yum

teeny, tiny flowers

lunch leftovers of chicken, avec pasta, cream, butter, wine, and parmesan... and champers. for dinner

Wake up! *i could use a shave*

and so could this

Bob and Laiyee had made $700 by noon yesterday when we stopped by to see their yard sale. It was a scream to watch Bob in action driving hard bargains with the OU kids. Bob told us they'd already cleaned out the cash and stashed it several times as i was taking this photo.

Tin Tin wondering why all these strangers are showing up today?? What's all this fuss?

Washington Street, home of beloved Donkey Coffee

Vitamin D

We got another light dusting of snow last night. I just stared out the front door at the sunrise for 5 minutes at the sunrise... getting my vitamin D, Steven, like Gavin told us. Gee, my mood feels enhanced already.

In other news, Steven has a gorgeous orchid in bloom right now. We have it in the kitchen enjoying it for a while. I think this one is my favorite, the blooms are so tiny.

Pictures from Yesterday (and more)

Nasturtiums, Naked Lady, and Dinner by Candlelight

This has been the mildest, most lovely summer on record, according to my internal summer data recorder. We've been able to eat dinner outside nearly every night. Even though it warms up in the afternoons, long before dark it cools significantly. Lately it has been 75-80 degrees and 30% humidity. Perfect weather for anything except ice fishing.

I'm off for a 3 hour bike ride to the next town... at 3 pm in August!! Could never do that in Georgia..

Curtis posted lovely pictures of his naked ladies, so we had to post a picture of our one, lonely, naked lady. Pretty sad. Steven says he planted a half dozen Curtis, but this apparently is the only one that made it. Curtis has practically an entire nude beach as compared to our solitary gal.

308 Garden :: 2 years of Progress

I just took a picture of our house from the same vantage point (307's sidewalk) as the first picture i took in May 2006, just before the previous occupants moved out. Besides the lovely blue sky today, you'll notice the lawn is long gone, that lots of Bracken and Lillies and Lambs Ear and Black-Eyed Susans and Echinacea and Naturtiums and lots of Creeping Jenny and Lirope and other ground covers and other perinnials are in its place. We also immediately planted a Sugar Maple acquired in Coolville, and a Ginko brought from Georgia that BC grew from a seed. Our back yard is still a big transitioning mess, but the front is finally coming along. Most of the area of grass is now replaced with Lirope, which will only be mown once a year, at the end of winter. We've also been trying to let the large, old Yew shrubs close to the porch grow a bit more naturally, abandoning the sculpted lollipop look from May '06. Oh, and notice the chimney cap too!

Outsmarting the Code Officials

In case you haven't figured it out by now, my projects in the garden involve all the infrastructure the garden requires to work and look good. Steven, of course, is all about the plants themselves and maintaining them and making sure they thrive. Me, i'm more interstitial exostructure (fences, decks, walls, walks, etc.) while Steven is cellular endo (plants, roots, digging, weeding). I've been thinking about this as Steven complains i never weed. Well, i do, he just never notices. And i never weed an entire area in one sitting like he does. And HE never is concerned with anything beyond the plants themselves.

So, our silly little town city government won't allow us to have a picket fence in our front garden. We aren't sure exactly why, something about being on a principal street and not wanting to close things in. Well it makes me mad. So i've been using our gobs and gobs of wood lath removed from the kitchen during renovation to make little tiny fences. This prototype panel is about 14 or 15 inches high and 24 wide, and just pushes into the soil. I took each scrap of lath and ripped longitudinally into 3 equal strips to start, so each member is quite small in section, like 3/8" square. I'll remove the nails as i go, and carefully arrange the cut sides this way, the plaster stained sides that, cut all the tops at a 45 degree angle so they won't soak up too much rain, etc. Now i have 30 or so more of these to go!

New Fence & Gate

We finished the gate last night (in the rain...grrrrr), and the fence is all substantially complete, except for a few trim items to cut and complete. Otherwise it is done. Now on to the back fence, deck, and planning the stone/brick pathways through this and the plantings. This fence will connect around to a back fence which will then connect to a deck off the screened porch, and the kitchen. The ultimate goal is to just be able to open the kitchen door and let a future doggie outside. Many things have to be moved/relocated/gotten rid of (such as the yuccas stabbing away at me while i work on the fence), Steven is working that all out in his head. Part of the solution involves us going to dig up lots of weeds (they are gorgeous weeds) from Laiyee's hill to plant next to the house. They do really well in full sun. Maybe Steven will post some pics of the few we already have near the back of the new fence.

The REALLY hard part is the prep work for the pathways, flagged patio, and pea gravel paths and parking area. We have ALOT of digging to do to properly prepare a lower gravel bed, then sand, then pea gravel or stone or brick. Somewhere in there is a permeable fabric layer--to keep mud from squishing up. Particularly if we're going to put cars on it, our rather bog-like backyard is going to need some work to keep the mud from squishing up. It would almost be easier (and probably cheaper) to put in concrete, but we've been resisting that, mostly for aesthetic reasons, but also to just avoid sealing in another big chunk of our tiny .1 acre of earth. Anybody have any advice for us on this? We were going to go to the library and see if we can find a book or a dvd or something. I found a few DIY websites, but find a bit of conflicting information (such as where the permeable layer goes).

Latest Craft Project :: Preps for Doggie??

Hi everyone! Here are some progress photos on the first of 3 series of fences. This is our east side yard, where, this weekend, we got about 60% complete on putting in a bamboo fence. We still have to do a bevy of mitre cuts on bamboo pieces at the numerous end points, and then outfit the cedar trim boards all over (visibly mocked up in some of these photos). Not to mention building a gate. Next will be about a third of the back yard, which will connect to this side yard as a big "L" shape, AND to the kitchen door. We recently passed the 2 year anniversary of Dear Departed Trotsky's untimely death... and being aware of it made us aware of just how much Trotsky would really have wanted us to have moved on to another canine companion by now. We miss the clomp clomp clomp of his elbows bashing the floor as he clambered under the bed every night at bedtime. And his banter with the cat. And his desire to go on twelve walks a day. His unconditional love. His cheeriness always. Ok, well, so that is why we are building these fences, so that hopefully sometime this summer, we will adopt another doggie, hopefully from the Athens County Shelter. And when we don't want to do the 1oth or the 12th walk that day, we'll be able to just open the kitchen door and say OUT. Or better yet, just have a doggie door in it and he/she can let themselves out!

5ive Signs of Spring

Me, in my nasty threadbare hat


Bamboo structures, reassembled for 2008 and awaiting the speedy growth of fava beans, long beans, green beans, zucchinis, tomatoes, butternut squashes, lettuces, green peppers, red peppers, jalapenos, peas, asparagus, cucumbers... for starters anyway


Plants cast out, greenhouse reclaimed for car and bicycles.


Back steps crowded with same plants, happy to be out in the dewey nights again.


and last, but not least, the hammock. a sure sign of spring.

Alive

Spring is finally here, not a moment too soon. I finally succumbed to some horrible flu bug over the past week, and am slowly getting my strength back and losing the terrible cough. I hope the devil is not incubating inside Steven as i click. Time to recuperate at the beach!

Weekend of Thanks

Mostly, i'm thankful to have an entire 4 day stretch off and away from the office. It has been a while. Nice to have nothing to do...read...watch tv (I have a new supply of Doris Day Show::Season 5ive, the final season)...go to the gym...walk into town.

More details, for you inquiring minds:
1. Time for a facial. I loooove this black rub-on and peel-off mask.
2. Steven has busily been repotting orchids today.
3. our loooong crazy plant we call *Cher Hair* repotted and renovated today to more closely fade into the stair newel. Isn't she darling?
4. JingXia prepares to make a *huge* mess in the dining room, repotting plants. Yes, in the dining room. Didn't we just make a greenhouse to make a mess in??
5. some repotted orchids in a fancy pants pot
6. a beautiful antherium in bloom (help me with spelling, somebody)
7. the new (to me anyway) sixties kitsch coffee set for two. It's made by the Swedish company called Rorstrand, and the pattern is "Curtis." I love it. Came all the way from some lady in Great Britain. A little hot coffee, some choclate, honey, cream, maybe some Bailey's or whiskey, yum yum.
8. a cleanfaced me, post-mask.

Hard Work Today

Today we painted a gaggle of beadboard to apply to nude garage/greenhouse walls, installed a sliding glass door, and found a poster for a local circus in the attic (we think maybe Curtis may know something about this circus?). And JingXia even helped. I can't remember the last time I was so completely dirty (even removing plaster in the kitchen wasn't as dirty as removing collar beams in the garage).

Next workday: install a gaggle of R11 batt insulation in said nude walls, and hold it in with the beadboard. I'll be moving a lovely old window that the sliding door replaced to the gable above the door (sorry JingXia, no more basketball), and our friend Aaron will be installing a wall-mounted gas heater for us. Then Steven's greenhouse dream will be done, just in time for all the various plants to winter. Yay!