Progress and Pavers

I think I'll have a good picture of what the whole house will look like soon. The guys are rocking right along with the soffit and they've almost finished the new shingles on the front. Tomorrow should be the siding on the front of the first floor. I can't wait!

new shingles almost done on the front!

project supervisor kept safely inside

After the front is finished, they are going to skip around to the back. Bill is going to get the footers poured for my new back porch. Yes, that's porch, not deck. The aim is to make it look as if it was always part of the house and not something that was tacked on recently.

Anyway, that's up next so that our hardscaping can get started. I'm really looking forward to my new retaining wall that will corral the mess on the factory side of the house. For that project we are planning to use Techo-Bloc. This is my current favourite color combination.



techo bloc, mini creta, victorien and mista in champlaign grey and onyx black

Everybody else seems to think I should go with brown, but I see greys. With the silver roof and all the raw concrete that was used in 1930, it is honest and original. I was even leaning toward re-using these super simple concrete pavers we dug up from the cabin. But everyone is afraid they will break. So far they haven't, I have loads more, and you can still buy them new, so I actually don't see the problem. But I can't get anyone else on board, so, new techo bloc it is!

All browns just make me think of the bland brown neighborhoods that have cropped up the last couple of years. Blech! Again, I don't want something dated 2012.

So for today, I'm leaning toward the mix of medium greys with a touch of brown, and an accent of charcoal grey. The main field colors would be the wall and the floor. For the walls, they do come in the charcoal grey as well, so I'm thinking maybe a 10% mix of dark grey with the 90% medium tones. The edging around the floors and the stairs in charcoal grey will be a snazzy contrast, and help define edges to prevent falls and mis-steps. And of course then we need to make the caps dark to tie it all together.

Please, I welcome comments or suggestions regarding my color choices. I have to stop changing my mind very soon so they can be ordered!

Back Steps Gone!

Expect the Unexpected

digging up the yard in preparation for retaining walls and new porch

gee, I hope it doesn't rain!

a surprise find, and no, it isn't buried treasure

what's under the hatch???

down the hole: rocks, water, and... is that Oliver hair?

now we just wait to see what we can do about it...

Last Year's Hail Damage

Last spring we had a wicked, nasty storm. Lewis was at home, but I stayed put at work because we weren't sure it was really safe to travel. Better to stay in safe shelter than risk getting caught in a bad storm in the little VW, blowing all over the highway.

Anyway, when Lewis first called to tell me how bad it was at home, I couldn't really understand him. I thought he was going through the automatic car wash!

When things subsided a bit he went outside with the camera.

big hail

hail-littered lawn

poor posies

garden recovered, but zucchini leaves took a beating

When the skies cleared, Lewis realized that we were very lucky. No broken windows, only some broken tree branches, no downed trees. But the siding, oh the siding...

that arc to the left of Oliver isn't dirt



those streaks aren't dirt, either



 



The hail actually struck the house so hard that the paint has been scraped away, right down to the bare metal. When you run your hands over the siding, you can feel all the pits and dents caused by the hail.

pits, dents and no paint

So, a project we though we were going to put off for several more years got bumped to the top of the list. And, you know, it isn't such a bad thing. While we have the siding off, we can remove all the old, unknown layers and we will be insulating from the outside in. While we have all the walls open, we are getting air conditioning (yay!), and replacing a few damaged windows. Also we are going to be getting the roof scraped and re-painted and we are getting new gutters. Gee, is that all... it seems like there is something else...

All you old house owners out there know what it is like. One task leads to another and another. This spring's project is turning out to be a big tangled mess of things that overlap. We're in for a fun ride!

On a Happier Note

a sun-dappled Oli-dog

lilac sprouting on both sides this year!

daffodils and tulips and hyacinth, oh my!

forsythia and purple leaf plum in full bloom - at the same time!

Bleak Back Yard

Well, up until now I wasn't completely unhappy to see so many trees come down. Most of the pines were planted way too close together and were all unhealthy because they were too crowded. We thinned those out. They took down the junky poplar tree. No big loss there.

Then they "trimmed" my apple trees. My antique Grimes Golden apple trees. They are now about 1/4 the height they were. Yes, I know they definitely needed some maintenance. But I'm not running an orchard, either. I was less concerned with the productivity of the crop than with the overall health of the trees. I believe they are nearly as old as the house.

I was going to have my friend's grandfather come in and take a look at them. He is a forrester with much passion and knowledge of apple trees. Well, all trees. But he was very excited to hear that I had two Grimes Golden trees. Before they were just allowed to go wild for at least a decade. Now I'm embarrassed to show him what has just happened to them.

sad apple trees and yucky view of the factory's tanks and parking lot

The real tragedy of the day was my mighty elm tree. You may recall that it took quite a hit from a storm a few years back. The top 1/3 of the tree came down. Took out a nearby pine. Thankfully it didn't fall toward the house.

It got a good trimming after that and many people told me to just take it down. I wanted my forrester friend to tell me if it could be saved, and if we could work around it when we went to regrade. Sadly, I woke up to this sight this morning.



previously disguised view of the factory



mighty elm, reduced to its parts

Now it is too late to save it. I'll admit that I cried. I really loved that giant shade tree. It protected the back of the house from the sun. And wind and rain. I believe it is very old and it did not have Dutch Elm Disease. What a gem. The yard looks really different now. Bleak and barren. Maybe I'll get a picture of the whole yard later.



Big 'Ole Pile of Dirt

Hello all! Blogger is back, we're back, all is good.

We did have a few minor projects this winter, I'm sure I'll get around to telling you about them eventually. Nothing too exciting.

But for now, we are working in the yard. Last week we had a yard of garden soil delivered.

Oli is longing to dig into all that dirt!

This helped us bulk up the garden beds along the house, and gave us more to work with to create a slope away from the house. Which in turn should helps keep the basement a little more dry. We hope.

Lewis sent me that picture during the day, and I went home expecting to be moving dirt around all evening, but guess what? He had it all done! Amazing.

This coming Saturday we are meeting with a landscaper. I'm so excited. He said he can work with us, come up with a grand plan that we can do in stages. That's just what I need. I've been tinkering with this yard for 7 summers now, and quite frankly, I just don't know what I'm doing.

Two years ago mom and I started to move large rocks and cement rubble to the narrow side between the house and the factory's fence, but I said stop. We don't know if we are doing the right thing or making it worse. We have such a steep slope, and I want a professional to tell me what needs to be done to correct that and make yard maintenance easier. I'll let you know what happens.

This Morning in My Yard

Oliver watched from the porch as I meandered around the yard with my camera this morning.My little cluster of herbs. I've got regular thyme and lemon thyme, French basil, sage, purple basil, and a tiny goldfish plant (not an herb).

The lovely contrast of yellow and purple in the front crescent bed. I'm really enjoying these, I'll probably do something similar next year.A few more tigerella tomatoes. I've discovered that they should be picked before they are completely ripe, otherwise they split like the one on the far left is just beginning to do. They will ripen in a day or so on the kitchen windowsill.

Something Else Happened the Day of the Oliver Crop Circles

Remember all those heavy stones I said I was carrying? Well they formed this:A nice mowing edge / path to divide the very back of the yard from the rest of the lawn.

Two reasons for this:
One, the 100' extension cord on the electric mower doesn't reach much farther than this, and, two, it is a pain to get under the apple trees to mow the weeds, 'cause nothing else wants to grow under there.

So the plan is to lay a mowing strip for a clear division (done), kill the weeds, and plant ground cover that will thrive in those conditions and not require much maintenance.

My little path starts near the fence at the spirea and crosses the main backyard path, past the apple trees, and ends at the retaining wall on the other side of the yard.

Girl vs. Groundhog, Rounds 1 & 2

I may be from Pennsylvania, the home of that most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, also home to the second-most famous groundhog, Gus, the spokes-critter for the Pennsylvania Lottery, but that doesn't mean I want giant holes in my yard!

This fat-cat has been digging giant craters in the yard for years, and we used to see him all the time, brazenly sunning himself out in the open yard. Not so much now that Oliver is on the scene, but it is evident that he's still around.

Since we've been digging up the sidewalk, and we had to dispose of some of the debris from that project, mom loaded a wheel barrow with soil-y rock, and I filled in the three largest of the groundhog holes. Then another load of rock-y soil on top. I had plans to sprinkle grass seed over the bare patches.

That was Saturday. I was pretty pleased with myself when I was done. By Wednesday he had managed to dig his way through the loose stones and tunnel back out.

I was hopping mad to see that new hole, and I set about fixing that groundhog. He is not going to outsmart me.
I found a large field rock from the giant pile filling my front yard flower bed, and I dropped it in his newly dug hole. Then I filled in around it with more rocky soil. Take that!

Re-purposing Rubble

We started with a truck load of broken concrete...Mom and I hauled the larger pieces over to the other side of the house, about four chunks in the wheelbarrow at a time, and we slowly built up a little rock wall.

This area along the fence is the bane of my yard. It is steeply sloped away from the house, with a slightly gentler grade from front to back. At only 7' wide, this little strip is at best difficult to mow, at worst dangerous to walk along. It is just too easy to loose your footing or turn an ankle.

Over the past couple of years we have puzzled over how to build this up a bit, and still keep the soil on our side of the fence. Aside from very expensive and drastic measures, this seems to be our best solution. Plus, it was free.
I don't think it looks too bad from the factory's side of the fence, but we'll get a better idea when they have trimmed the weeds and tall grass from their side. Hopefully that's not what's keeping all my rocks from sliding down hill!

Mower Damage

My next door neighbor has been super sweet by mowing my front yard and my little strip between our houses when he has his riding mower out. I am so grateful for even that little bit of extra help. That's why I feel bad for being upset over this:

It looks like he bumped the trunk of my purple leaf plum with the mower. He probably doesn't even realize he did it. I'm not mad or anything, just worried about the tree. What if it doesn't heal, or gets disease or bugs?

Otherwise, it looks full and happy and healthy.

We planted it last April, and it looks so much better. I can't wait for it to get tall enough to provide a bit of shade and privacy on the porch.

Crop Circles

I've uncovered the secret to crop circles:

Golden Retrievers love rolling and rutching their backs in tall grass.

Well, that's what Oliver likes to do, anyway.
Sunday was a big-work-outside day. I was afraid I was running low on my reclaimed from the cabin paving stones for my backyard project, we've been pilfering from that stack for the front yard for a while. So I decided I had better lay them out to see how many I could still take. And it's a good thing too, because I had exactly enough left for my backyard project. Not one more or one short.

Of course, I didn't take a picture of the finished walkway, I'll try to do that soon. But you get a picture of Oliver instead. I think my old cell phone took better photos than the new one, but that's what was handy. Oli doesn't get to this part of the yard very often, but I moved his rope so he could be near me, but not so close he could trip me up as I carried heavy stones across the yard! So, as you can see, he enjoyed himself. Also, you can see we seriously need to mow!

Rocks and Cement = Sidewalks

Last August, for my birthday, I got a letter from our town. A lot of people around got these letters. Mine came with a black and white printer copy of a photo of my sidewalk. More specifically, the big corner chunk that was coming loose (from where the town's snow plow hit it two winters ago). Residents had ten months to make the appropriate repairs, or the town will do it for you, charge you the cost, plus 10%, plus fine you. Nice. Well, what can you do? It is what it is, I guess. Oh, yeah, there's also a $15 construction permit either way.


Most people weren't prepared to make the repairs last fall, and of course you can't do this kind of job during the winter, so over the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of this sort of thing going on around town:Yup. That's my little slice of construction.

Mom's boyfriend John and his neighbor Bart are going to help with this, as they have both been laid off recently. John is very handy in general and Bart worked for years for a company that does paving in the summer, snow clearing in the winter.

On Tuesday Bart cut the broken sections away from the rest of the sidewalk and the street, then John took a sledgehammer to the sidewalk.

On Wednesday John and Lewis loaded the largest pieces onto the trailer that John left for us. Then Mom and I took over and we dug the rest of the smaller pieces out of the pit. That's what I'm calling it now. The pit.

As it turns out, there was a big layer of field rocks just below the cement layer. Most of them have come completely loose from the cement. Mom and I picked them out of the rubble and have piled them onto my crescent flowerbed. (Poor violets, they didn't stand a chance.) I'm not quite sure what I want to do with them yet, but I have many options. More on that later.Now, I'm not saying my sidewalk is in great shape. It certainly is not. There are only two sections that don't have cracks. I would have liked to do the whole thing at once, and if I could have put this project off for a couple more years, maybe we would have been able to do that. But right now money is so tight that I don't even know how I am going to pay for the supplies to finish this project. So thank you, town, for forcing this on the homeowners during the worst recession many of us have ever seen.

Oliver enjoyed watching us for a while, but once I gave him a chewy he didn't care what was going on anywhere in the neighborhood. That's it, buddy. Get rid of that nasty tartar and plaque.