and a partridge in a pear tree

sadly, no partridges.  but pear trees?  yes!  hubs worked hard to plant our first four pear sticks that will eventually be espaliered into a fence of sorts on our west property line.

we plotted the first tree ten feet from the road.  which sounds like a large distance, and lots of potentially wasted space.  but due to the level of geek i am, i had hauled out the measuring tape in the thick of winter and measured the distance from the road that it took the snow bank to peter out.  granted, this past winter was probably the definition of the ten-year-storm, but i don't want our little tree-fence to be crushed by the snow plow.  they are planted on ten foot centers, which to me sounded too big, but i was assured by the proper authorities that i have to imagine the little branches many years down the road when they will indeed fill in the space.  many, many, many years.

my man knows how to plant a tree; and oh yeah, rockin the white sneaks

with sprinkles of azomite, humic acid, and lime, hubs patiently set each stick into her place.  i'm really grateful that he loves trees so much.  he takes such care with each one.  i'm glad to be planter of annuals and hardy perennials that don't mind my abuse.  i can get away with my slapdash approach, and if my methods cause some plants to fail, oh well.  but trees need a steady hand, and they get that here at good fortune orchard.

hubs getting help from the boy and his pink elephant watering can

starting at the one closest the road, the varieties are:  bosc, anjou, aurora, seckel.  all purchased from fedco trees (an amazing source of all garden goodness).

it feels a bit weird to have delineated the space between our yard and our neighbors so cleanly.  ours.  yours.  the two yards have always flowed together.  decades ago the land was one big farm.  it especially feels kinda goofy due to the odd shape of our lots.  don't know why the deed took our yard from the drain hole through their well out diagonally to a big tree.  but that's how it works here in new england.  there was probably a stubborn cow in the way when they drew up the line.  my dream has always been to acquire their lot after they move on, and make their cool old barn into a studio for me and the hubs.  but that barn is now collapsing in disrepair.  so maybe we'll just get the land...

i also thought it might be fun to record how our kitchen garden is coming along.  not much quite yet.  got seeds planted two weeks ago, and some have started to sprout.

itty bitty cilantro and marigold; basil is that small, too

borage fairly bursting - i'm impressed

more marigolds on this side.  also split and transplanted the lavender, one on each side of the steps

the seeds would probably be doing better if it hadn't been raining and hovering around 50 degrees for the last ten days.  this past weekend, in the window of sunshine along with the pear planting, hubs got half our veggie boxes constructed.

this week will bring a big delivery of soil for the boxes which couldn't be screened with all the wet weather as well as (hopefully) a stump pulled out to straighten the driveway.  i'm trying not to look at the forecast which claims another wet week ahead.

a mother's day miracle

after a disappointing saturday when the tractor guy was supposed to come by but didn't, i felt adrift in loss of ground.  i felt like yet another weekend was going to pass us by without measurable progress.  i threw a bit of a tizzy, and then let it wash over me.  i got over myself, and got some more transplanting completed, including the peonies which were hopelessly tangled in their pit.  but there's nothing i love more than a good organizing of roots via hacking, so i hoped for the best and stabbed away.  after that, i felt much better.

sunday i woke up to a beautiful mother's day card from my sweet son, and sun!  though it was a bit windy, we decided to grab bagels and coffee and head out to the beach for a breakfast picnic.  we met friends there, and while the kids jumped off a giant pile of seaweed, we adults got to relax and chat.

we headed home to warm up, and lo and behold, the tractor was working in the yard!  i couldn't believe my eyes as our uneven yard started to take shape.  i love it when a plan comes together.

it's amazing how fast our trusty guy works.  we got both the perennial and vegetable areas smoothed out, plus a drainage pipe laid at the end of our driveway with a connector to our well that overflows.

hubs and one of our guys putting in the 4" drainage pipe across the driveway

some very satisfying befores and afters:

veggie area before: note root stock apple, w.t. dirt pile, general malaise

veggie area after: note beauty, flatness, and a relaxed feeling

veggie side, different before view

different after view, can you envision the espaliered pears as a fence?

and finally, the aerial views

breathtaking, isn't it?

perennial side, before, note: spruce=curved driveway

cleanliness is next to jennliness

i'm so excited i'm about to burst.  now hubs and the boy are going to make me one million raised beds that i can fill with stuff.  i think the strawberry plants want to get out of the fridge...

bye, bye, spruce!

yop, choppy, choppy!  the fugly spruce got hacked.  it has immediately opened up the front yard, and made me a very happy lady.  it's amazing to me how one smallish change can make such a huge difference.

this is one of those "one small step for the landscape, one large step for landscapekind" moments.  to me, it is just the thing that i needed to see to know that the ball is rolling, and we will have a changed front yard this year.  and that's cool beans.

the stately, fugly spruce, before

this poor tree had been mauled by a sister spruce the year that we moved into the house.  she came down during a storm, across our driveway, scratching, and grabbing, and trying to hold on to her smaller sibling.  while this one survived the storm, it was much worse for the wear.  the ugliest side of course is the street side.

i felt small twinges of guilt when the chopping began, only because i know that many local birds hang out in the branches.  tho when it came down, we couldn't find any nests.  i felt immediately better.  the hubs felt bad about it, but really he has a hard time cutting anything living down, regardless of ugliness.  (there will be a story in a future post about a root stock apple that he wept over...just kidding...sort of.)

and the boy protested the chopping, and wanted to be inside during the show.  he's still talking about how he wants the tree back a week later.  hey, mama's got a plan, boy!

what those guys doin, mama?

so now our front yard is more open, and we can have a straight driveway.  wahhhhoooooo!  just gotta move that stump.

before, watch for the left-most bigass tree

after - hey, there's the house!  holy crap, better plant something else there soon.

hoping our trusty tractor man comes back this weekend for some grading love.  then the momentum will really pick up.

file under progress

yes, progress.  we're 90% of the way there on the new guest room.  and, excepting the photos that are on their way that may grace the walls, this is where we may stay on this room for a little while.  we got the walls painted, the floor patched and painted, the new area rug in, the bed moved in, and a new chair and ottoman purchased and set down.

jenny installing carpet pad - equipment:  comfy yellow socks, extremely sharp knife, plumber's crack

new carpet trial runs

new carpet happy dancing

here are some extraordinarily satisfying befores and afters:

before corner as you enter

after corner as you enter (yeah, lamp needs a table, relax)

before back corner

after back corner, boy checking out functionality of ottoman

ahhhh.  now the boy has a place to "put his babies to sleep" in the ottoman that opens up for storage.

obviously, we're going to need some curtains, a table for the lamp, cool shit on the walls, and some bedside lighting of some sort.  all in good time...

for now, a sigh of relief.  now, if we could only unload the mammoth couch from the living room to make room for the chairs that we got to replace it, the we could de-clutter the media room enough to actually use that room.  and the shell game continues.

omg! omg! omg!

i have been waiting for this moment since about 3 seconds after moving into this house.  the ugly, brown, matted, scratchy, pooped on (yes, our cat) carpet is gone.  major sigh of relief.  my loathing of this carpet has been palpable.  i wouldn't even let our baby boy lie on it.  it gave me the major heebs.  but now that i've ripped it all up, i can see...ugly plywood.  but that's okay.  i'm hoping to sand and paint it this weekend and then get an area rug in there.  we'll do something more permanent with the next upgrade.  [snicker]

the equipment:  headphones, sippy cup, blankie, christmas kitty cat

my equipment, complete with construction yoga pants

it was actually pretty easy.  possibly because my body was hyped on the thought of having it out.  but the key was that red carpet ripping knife.  very, very sharp.  as he was leaving the house knowing that i was potentially going to have at it, hubs said to me, "don't like hurt yourself with that knife.  you're the only adult home, okay?"  have i mentioned that i love demo?  hooray!  i was determined to have it done with by trash day, and hubs just hauled it to the curb.  good, freekin riddance.

and i also got the walls painted.  i spent so much time hemming and hawing about what direction to go.  at first i was thinking camels, taupes, tans.  then i think i was influenced by all the grays i've been seeing in the interior dec blogs i've been crawling lately for inspiration.  in my mind i was seeing a warm gray.  something with brown and purpley undertones.  my gut went with "barefoot bay" 197-1 from mythic paint.  at first blush (?), i'm thinking it's too purpley, but hubs keeps insisting that it's great.  what he actually said when the first coat went on was, "wow, it's like a grown up color!".  hmmm.  i think it will look really good when the cherry wood bed is in there, along with a possible new dark brown chair.

hey, looky - no effin cow!

painting also made us notice how crappy the trim looks.  the previous owner (the second to own the house) decided that slapping a coat of white oil-based paint over all the exposed wood in the house made it look better.  yeah, no primer.  and really, just SLAPPED the paint on.  so you can see all the knots, and streaks of the wood underneath.  sigh.  we'll fix the window trim when we install new windows sometime in the very near future.  the baseboards may have to just get another half-asser coat of white glossy.  hey, rome wasn't built in a day.

creating a guest room

our current guest room is the same room in which we have our working desk and our computers.  it also is currently stowing my (as of yet unused) sewing machine, a cedar chest with what i can't remember in it, and the drying rack.  while it's a nice enough room, it's on the road side of the house, so it's noisier and gets more direct sun (not a good thing at 7 am) and headlights at night.

we have another bedroom on the first floor that is currently a catch-all and a great room for the boy to romp.  our vision (my vision?) is that the romper room be turned into the guest bedroom (with minimal cosmetic changes), and the current guest room be reinvented as a computer/craft/media/music room for the mostly-adult set.  i want my sewing machine set up with table space for fabric and other crafty notions, and i would love to see a cool drafting area for the hubs so he can work out all his architectural ideas.

as everything in house renovation, it's a shell game.  gotta work the guest room first so the behemoth bed can be moved so that the craftyfun room can be realized.

first step, demo!  i love the demo portion of any project.  this is minor stuff.  just have to rip off some old silly wallpaper borders.  the room used to be a kid's room, and the mural is nicely done, just not our style.  so down it must come.

it was actually quite easy.  took two parts hot water, one part white vinegar.  use a sponge to soak the paper, wait a few minutes (or as long as you can - i generally am impatient to rip paper off - oooooh, the satisfaction!), then use a nice wide spackle knife to pull up the paper.  don't push too hard, as you don't want to ding up the drywall.  and if it tears, just resoak, rewait, restrip.  i was going back and forth between two sides which worked nicely, so i didn't have to wait to do something.

before with borders

the equipment

yes, it's better without.

and voila - a wall i can work with!  i will probably have to lightly sand the wall because the mural paint is heavy in places.  then prime and paint.

felt good to make some progress on something today.

quick photo project

we have a large living room that needs a ton of design/redecorating tlc.  in the meantime between now and when we're ready to do a large renovation, we decided that one of the large, white walls had to go.  so i gathered up a collection of quasi-abstract photos i've taken, framed them up, and voila, we have a better looking wall!

i am, by no means a hardcore photographer.  i have a point-and-shoot that i love for its small size and ease of use.  eventually i'd love to have the time, money and patience to use a better camera.  but for now, an inexpensive camera that i take everywhere works great for me.

i fiddle with the original photos a teeny bit in photoshop elements.  i crop, convert to black and white, fuzz things out a bit.  then i upload all of my photos to snapfish.com for developing.  these are all 8X10 size.  i like how some of them are matted and some aren't.

the hardest part of this project was the measuring.  because they are not all the same frame, and the spacing is more what looked good to my eye than any sort of round number, it was hard to know where to pound in the nail.  make sure that you have lots of coffee humming in your system before attempting the measuring and math.  or have as your helper, a kind, patient, willing husband who is superfreekinhandy.  that's what i did.

ahh, that's better.

later this year (???) there will hopefully be paint on the walls, a fireplace in the room, and a piano.  yeah.

dig it!

i should have, first of all, maybe told all my avid readers (thanks, hubs) why i'm doing this blog.  i want to document the shenanigans at our homestead.  the stuff inside, the stuff out.  mostly to feel like i'm actually getting something done, as this is not a regular occurrence for a stay at home mom with a toddler about.  it will be nice to look back in a few months or years and see where we came from and that something did actually get accomplished.  it's so hard to see that in the dailies, isn't it?

i'm inspired by the lovely blogger dig this chick.  if you don't already follow her, please get there quickly.  http://www.digthischickmt.com/  she's so inspirational.  her pictures are beautiful, her kids are sweet, and she has a rockin etsy shop as well.

anyway, she is the force behind virgin harvest (see button to right), and i thought it was such a cool idea, that i wanted to fully participate.  thus the blog.

now to stop fiddling with the blog and sleep...

getting giddy

no, not gettin' jiggy.  getting giddy.  i'm getting giddy for spring to spring already so i can put my/our plans into action.   i have been dreaming, planning, scheming our front yard transformation for years now.  we moved into our current house in 2005, and have already accomplished so much inside and out.  but the front yard still beckons.  last year our project was the addition of a totally rockin patio and sitting/retaining wall.  while hubs and i collaborated on the design, he was the department of execution, while i was on toddler patrol most of the spring/summer/fall.  needless to say, my envisioned perennial garden got exactly nowhere.  that's all good, as i'm amazed with the way the wall and patio turned out.  but next spring is mine.

our front yard...in progress

the almost finished wall

i've got plans for my perennial garden that i sketched up based largely on the tenants of the excellent book
"The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden: A Blueprint for Continuous Color" by Lee Schneller. this book is especially insightful if you live in northern new england, as she gives a nice, manageable list of plants that grow well in our area. the plans of course will change as soon as the excavator shows up, but it's nice to have a bit of focus.

yes, i said excavator.  wah - nervous for that!  we have some grading "issues" in our yard.  we also have essentially zero topsoil.  so one of the first items on the spring to-do list is to hire an excavator to do lots of scooping.  next on the list will be to move some existing perennials back into the space, but in a much nicer fashion.  my hubs insists that this will be easy, what with all the new topsoil.  here's hoping.

in addition to the perennial garden that i hope to get started in april/may, along with some transplanting of blueberry bushes, apple trees, some pear trees, and the kitchen sink, we have high hopes for some raised-bed veggie gardening.  my goals are to establish some strawberries (the boy can't get enough), get some tomatoes rockin (mostly roma for sauces), and like, all of the cole crops.  that's all i can allow my pea brain to get latched onto at this point, but if things are going well, then i'd love to add snap peas, leafy greens, cucumbers, winter squash, and melons.  yeah.  dream big or go home.

i think my mantra throughout this process will be that a garden is never really "done" and therefore anything can be changed.  sigh.  that makes me feel better even now.

but for now, we are still buried under multiple feet of snow.  so i have to remain patient for a few more months.  i think i'll go paint the guest room...