cruise control

this week, it was all about the weeding. With the dirt done, we're into maintenance mode now..
weeding, watering, and adding plants when they come up. I made my weekly trip to the lowes clearance bin, and brought home two red hot pokers, a variety of daisy, and a white salvia for the moon garden.

We also scored a $100 gift certificate to a local nursery from our realestate agents, so, that will go to good use.

In house news....the old house is all done, spent the week wrapping up little loose ends with final bills. The new owner seems to be happy and was out there weeding like a maniac yesterday. Good for her.

Things are settling down now, and most of the big projects are done on the new house for now. As soon as they re-roof our shop, I'll be painting it, and we've been cleaning up some of the accumulated building junk that managed to appear during the construction of the new house. I'd like to have chickens again in the spring, so we're trying to clean out the chicken coop area in order to rebuild the fence. All in good time......

I'll leave you with a cute kitty pic. She loves her strawberry box, but is outgrowing it. I've saved her a salad box to graduate to. We'll see if she loves that too.

It's coming along!

Today is finish the dirt day.....this is all I have left, just a bit of cleanup. That was 45 yards of dirt. My aching back!!

Yesterday we worked our way through the plants in waiting. Mostly in the back, but things are perking up and starting to look like something.....

 

Now it's just a matter of MORE plants and water, water, water, oh, and weed, weed, weed. Our big projects are pretty much done, just one more, roofing and painting the shop. (to be done soon).

We're also going to work on the pump house for the cistern and the patio next to it. All in good time.

 

I've also been told I've never put a pic of the finished labyrinth on the blog.

well, here it is...

 

now if we could only keep these guys from eating everything.....

 

 

In other news, miss kitty is settling in nicely, and the best news of all...

The old house is SOLD!!!! DONE!! the new gal is moving in as we speak and the check is already in the bank. Glad to have that off our plates!!

 

 

bad blogger!!

Last week's post ended up over on the other blog.....not sure how THAT happened.

This week, we worked on putting up our deer repeller (chain link fence). We're now fenced on 3 sides and we're hoping that will help a bit. We also put out the deer sprinkler (and have gotten blasted a few times), so I know it works.

I'm SO close to being done with the dirt, so close. That's the project for this week. Finish dirt, finish moving rocks and gravel and clean up that area, and get everything planted that's sitting over there in pots, so that when they do the shop roof in a couple of weeks, I can start painting the shop before it starts raining.

Our next major project will be the pump house for the cistern and the small patio that goes in front of it. Then, we'll just keep plugging away at planting.

Next weekend, I'm working at the local farmer's market for the master gardeners, so there might be some good plant buys there to check out. Everytime I get something, though, I have to wonder how much I will have to water it. It just makes more work.

THIS is WAR!!!

Ok, I've been working away and admiring my labors, and so has someone else.....

Look closely, in the middle. It's taunting me! And, to make matters worse, it has THREE babies!!!!
TRIPLETS!!!!! They're cute, but they grow up to be 400lb eating machines.
There's nothing worse than planting a nice plant that's supposed to be "deer resistant" only to find out that no one told the deer that! Some of the things that have surprised me......passion vine (chowed), banana plants, (how do they know to eat those?), geum, all sorts of flowers including daylilies, and most confounding, potato plants, (the leaves are poison - sorry, but too bad it didn't at lease give them a bellyache)

I'll be on amazon today ordering myself a deer scare sprinkler. We've had one before, and it actually works pretty well. In 2 weeks, over the 4th of july, we're putting up our fence in the back, so that MIGHT slow them down a bit. ARGH!!!

On a happy note, today is labyrinth day. In a couple of hours, we'll be outside, in the rain (of course) building our long-awaited labyrinth.

Won't the neighbors be curious?
Oh, and by the way, these guys are NO help with the deer......those dang deer just look at them as if to say "what's your loud, barky problem?"
ARGH!!

 

 

Ok, here's the dirt.....

No, really, real dirt, and lots of it.
On wednesday this week, they delivered ANOTHER 15 yds of dirt. It was raining, so I didn't get a chance to start until friday. I've been plugging away at it for the last 2 days, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through the new pile....

This is all going in the back now. The big metal thing is a piece of art. It needs the rest of it's parts. The rock will be a landscape feature (there's another one too) This area will be the white/moon garden. I'm also looking at putting some stepping stones in there and making a path - it's a pretty large area and needs to be broken up a bit.

Today we're also finishing the fountain in back. All solar. When it's sunny, the water rises up to the top and flows over the top pot. (that's the neighbors house back there, not ours)

 

We need to make a run to get a new solar pump, but it'll be done today.....

 

Some other things in the works....

Next saturday I'll be taking a concrete leaf class. It sounded like fun and I'm hoping it will inspire me to jump back into mosaics.

Also next weekend, on sunday, the labyrinth will be installed. We went and got all the rocks last week (hopefully enough), and we'll be helping to lay them out. There will definitely be pics...

 

And.....in other news, our new kitty, which we found out is a girl, will be ready soon. She weighs about 1.5 lbs, well on her way to the 2lb minimum, and is getting cuter every day. We can hardly wait for ziggy pop to come home and join the herd.

Ok, I think I'm tired now.....

Remember that 15 yard pile of dirt from last week??

all gone....oh, and see that fence in the background? That's new too. It blocks the view from the new house to the old house. (which SHOULD be done, closed, and sold on the 20th).

But, where did the dirt go?

In the back beds, of course. Nice grass, huh? No worries, it's new. It'll fill in.

We also went and got rocks for the labyrinth yesterday......

literally a TON of rocks. We need to make one more trip today, and then that should be enough. The nice rock folks are letting us hand pick the ones we want. (although they think we're a bit nuts - nothing new there).

I also made a HUGE score.....

 

There's a mail-order peony and daylily place here in olympia that was having a clearance sale at the farmer's market. I got these on friday.....and then went back on saturday and they had different stuff. No pics of those, but it was about this much again. They were all $2, including the 7 tree peonies and 3 itoh peonies I got. They need some love, dirt, and patience, but next year, watch out!

(going back again today, just because). So far, I've gotten about $1000 worth of plants for about $100. Will they all make it? Probably not, but it's still a HUGE bargain!

 

We also had a bit of a setback this week.......

 

 

these USED to be strawberries. Damn deer

 

Next week, more dirt, more rocks, finishing the fence, and a master gardener plant fire sale

YAHOO!!

 

moving a mountain

So, the landscapers are finished, the grass is growing, and I have a mountain of dirt to move. We didn't have them put dirt in the flower beds in the back because, well, they charge a lot.  I can haul dirt.
So, this week, I'll be moving this little mountain.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me. It's about 6 feet tall..... I can only do so much, because I like to be able to walk the next day. I'm funny like that. So, I'll  be plugging away at it this week.

The front is coming along. The labyrinth will be installed on the 23rd. Next weekend, we're off to get rocks for it, so we'll be ready.

On the old house front, the inspection is done, the appraisal will probably be this week, and things are moving along (again).

Off to dig......