Revisiting the Honey Do List....Better Late Than Never

As I may have lamented....a few times, over the past couple of weeks, our weather SUCKS! It has been raining, pouring, thundering, lightening, blowing....am I missing anything? It has NOT been sunshining. We have been able to get an hour or so of outdoor work done before the poor weather returns. Well, remember those bird houses we built this winter. We were finally able to find a bit of time and a break in the weather to install them.

The birds seem to be digging the grapevine I attached on the top. Every day I catch at least one perched on top of it. The tall one with the tin star was our first. I wasn't smart enough to install a door on it so that it can be cleaned out at the end of the season. Hopefully the new tenants won't have an issue.


We positioned them down by Rookie's Patch so we can watch them from the kitchen window. Now we can watch the chickadees, hummingbirds, love doves and squirrels from the window by our kitchen table and the future tenants from our kitchen, living room and bedroom.

Birdhouses installed - CHECK!


Next item ticked off, install the trellises...trellis'....trelli? It was truly over due (the Nelly Moser clematis pictured below actually started blooming in the garage) and not without a couple of issues.

Issue #1....yesterday rain was forecasted so I refused to do any outdoor work and focused my efforts on inside jobs. Thing is, it didn't rain so I lost an opportunity to get a bit of gardening done. When the SF returned from his day, collecting the trailer, insuring it, etc., we had dinner and then he coerced me into heading out to the garage to install the trellises, trellis', errrr, trelli. We measured twice, drilled once and as we were screwing in the second of four screws on the first one, on cue, it started to rain. Determined to get the job done, we persevered only to be interrupted by Issue #2, the SF's cellphone going off and him getting called into work for an "issue". We probably couldn't have completed the third one anyway as it really started rain, but COME ON....give an old goat a break!

Clematis Proteus

After returning from Ernie's three month check up at the vet this afternoon (see below), we finally got the third one installed and I planted the three clematis, clematises, clemati? (Can this get any more difficult?)

Clematis Duchess of Edinburgh

VOILA!

Trellis & Clematis (That works well, doesn't it? Grammar restored.) installed - CHECK!

LOL!!! Note to self. When it pours for what seems like two weeks straight, do not leave the drain on OPEN on the rain barrel. It doesn't work so well. The SF went to get some water today and the barrel was empty.

As for Mr. Noogie-san. Still waiting for results but it was a rather disconcerting visit for me, my first visit since losing Rookie without the SF there for moral support. And wouldn't you know it, two minutes after I get there a man comes in carrying his golden retriever. The man is crying inconsolably while holding his beloved pet, as best he can, on his lap. And what do I do...start crying! After they wheeled the poor baby off on a stretcher, the man sat in the waiting area sobbing. It broke my heart. All I wanted to do was leave and I think Ernie was much the same. My thoughts go out to his dog, Kayla tonight. I hope she is not suffering and is back home with her Dad wherever that may be.

313.5 hrs....Don't you love it when you can turn your husband on....

....to one of your favourite pastimes. Get your mind out of the gutter people. I'm talking about gardening because now he gets just as excited as I do about going to a garden show. It was, however, a very small one in a community called Crapaud which, my chiropractor informed me the other day, is Toad in french. It's a small community about a half hour drive west from our house.

Among the purchases, a pair of gardening clogs pour moi. Sloggers. No Mom, not wooden clogs. Sorry to my Dutch ancestors, but I really don't know how comfortable those could be and as uncoordinated as I am, I would probably break an ankle.


Ev bought two tomato cages that match my shoes.
We were still able to come away with a few plants. Two Hellebores and a Tree Peony. (I borrowed these photos from a friend.)

As for the planters we were building. I found an inspirational photo which we based our design off and then found a free plan online somewhere which we adapted, adjusting the length and the panels to suit our needs. This is our inspiration...

This is first of two.

After our marriage just barely surviving the completion of one, I decided to back away from the power tools and let the Silver Fox work solo on the second one while I worked on my trellises. Regardless of our differences of opinion, mostly math related, we are both pretty impressed and proud of the outcome. The Silver Fox has not only completed the second but has also primed both and will be painting them next week. Then to line them, plant and stand back to watch them fill in. I'll post some pictures once they are done.

Their new home will be on our upstairs deck below the two large picture windows. (I know my Mom will understand this, but I hope they don't end up with FELT PADS on the bottom of their feet.)

That's it for today folks. Must knit. GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!

Second Workshop Project

I am a huge fan of flowering vines crawling up the side of anything yet I have never stayed anywhere long enough to actually plant something and watch it spread its way upward and onward.


Amongst my favourites are clematis, wisteria, climbing roses and ornamental hops.



While I don't think it is warm enough here for wisteria, I have intended to attempt to grow a few of the others and have found the perfect place to do so. The workshop.

I have chosen this for two reasons - it pretty much gets full sun all day long and it is in direct sight of the house so no matter what window I will be looking out, I will be able to see the fruits of my labour.

Next step, building something for the plants to lean against....a trellis. Over the years, I have spent many hours in the garden centres looking at trellises, arbours, and pergolas. I've spent equally as much time dissecting them in books and magazines. And yet for all that energy, I still didn't find a trellis that truly spoke to me so I decided to build my own. Then one day I stumbled upon a photo of this:

Simple enough, right? Now to make a plan. Call me anal but I printed the picture off as large as I could and pulled out a ruler so I could measure each section to scale so I could duplicate it as best as possible, that took me about an hour. Then a trip to the home improvement store - $6 for materials. That's it! Then I set to work.

I tackled this in the workshop on my own while Ev was at work. The only part I needed his help with was the cross members because I had to rip the pieces in half on the table saw and it took two of us to tack them down afterward.

So far, this is what I've got done. I just need to complete the cross members on the second trellis and paint!


In the end, if all of my efforts fail, and for whatever reason, my plants don't grow, I can always head out to the front of our house and admire the Boston Ivy that is already established there in the Enchanted Garden. I wonder if that's why I instantly fell in love with our home....

Interloping

Definition: When a spouse moves in on, or takes over, their significant other’s domain. In this case, I moved in on my hubby’s workshop. When we bought our house, it came complete with a huge garage with a heated floor, plenty of built in shelves and workbenches for E to store all of his tools and our goodies. Over the last five months, he seems to migrates toward his shop and spends countless hours out there doing I don’t know what, but it ain’t eating popsicles like his father-in-law does because 1) he doesn’t have a deepfreeze out there and 2) we don’t buy popsicles.

With Spring fast approaching I had a couple of projects I wanted to tackle so with E’s help I moved on to learn how to operate a few power tools. My first project was a trio of birdhouses in differing heights. My inspiration came when E and I went on a trip to New Brunswick with my visiting childhood amigo. We were headed toward Hopewell Rocks when we stumbled upon a home-based business that sold everything birds, including the most adorable birdhouses. Wouldn’t you know it, in this age of debit and credit cards, between the three of us we weren’t able to scrounge up enough money to buy a single one. Of course the two of them tried convincing me to approach the owner and ask for a deal but I was too chicken (get it, birds...chicken...see the likeness?). So I stored my plans to buy one away for another trip. And then one day it dawned on me. I can make my own!

So I set to hunting the net for ideas and free plans and found one that looked fairly simple, made a couple of modifications and we set to it. I made some green tea to put in my portable coffee mug...doesn’t every carpenter? I put my plans on a clipboard, put on my toque and mittens and strapped on my tool belt. Yes, I have one...a hand me down, but it’s mine. E loaded it with a hammer, a carpenter’s pencil, a tape measure, and a speed square. I again used some remnants of the box E & Dad made for our utility trailer so I didn’t have to invest in any wood. I used screws from E’s stash...he stashes hardware, I stash wool. We had a length of dowelling that neither one of us could remember what it was purchased for nor, I have a container full of acrylic craft paint. All I really needed was a can of varnish to seal it when I was done and some embellishments and off we went. It took a couple of hours to get the first one done, with E’s help. I am not so great on the table saw; it’s pretty intimidating. And, don’t get me started on screwing. Apparently, I can’t screw straight. Every time I thought I was going in straight, my screw would protrude ever so slightly from where it should have been neatly hidden. I started using his drill that has a level on it and had better success but the battery died. My nailing isn’t much better than my screwing. On a more positive note, I have mastered the chop saw. When complete, my marriage was still intact - a feat in itself and I had three lovely birdhouses.


I got a little smarter as I went on and installed doors at the bottom to clean out the mess at the end of the season. I do love the fact that my first one has a tin roof and a tin star mounted over the entrance way as it is reminiscent of the homes here. Everyone seems to have these stars hanging on the exterior of their homes. It got to be a joke between my visiting friend and myself. Instead of hollering out "punch buggy" and slugging each other in the arm as we did as kids to allay our boredom driving to our hockey games, we would yell "STAR!" and belt each other one.

Eventually they will be mounted on some poles and will be strategically placed in the yard. Hopefully someday they will make a perfect little
pad for some little birdy families.

Driven to distraction....

As you might guess, it was a difficult week for us. The first couple of days, we were completely unsettled. Not happy being home where everything we touched brought up a memory of our beloved Rookie, we would often grab a coffee and take a drive. We would mindlessly and aimlessly drive around checking out neighbourhoods we haven't yet seen and avoid returning home at all costs. Pulling back into the driveway and entering the house was the worst because Rookie wasn't there to greet us. As days passed, it got a bit easier but waves of grief would hit either one of us unexpectedly. Once we made it through the initial days, we both returned to some projects and started others that would occupy our thoughts and steer our pain into something more positive.

Gardening! Seems funny I'm going to talk about gardening when we are in the middle of a blizzard here. Over the past 6 hours, we have accumulated at least 6 inches of snow. It was so deep that when I opened the door to let Ernie out this morning, he couldn't even get out the door. I had to carry him out and shovel a little "poo patch" for him. I digress. We have been dreaming about our garden since we arrived. Heck, I've been dreaming about a garden since we left BC in July 2006. We have some lofty plans but are trying to take on only a few projects each year. This years projects:

1. Compost (completed Fall/09)
2. Vegetable Garden & Perennial Starter Garden
3. Lasagna Garden Trial
4. Front Flower Beds
5. New Front Flower Bed
6. Planter Boxes for Deck
7. Trellis'
8. Cold Frames
9. Start Seeds

Would you agree now? Lofty? We started composting the instant we arrived in PEI. The island is huge into composting. We actually have two garbage cans provided by the city - one for garbage and one for compost - each is picked up on alternate weeks. Rather than give away all of our good compost, we wanted to create our own but because we arrived so late in the year, we couldn't find a composter to purchase so we created our own. We have a small compost disposal that we keep under the kitchen sink. When that's full we transfer it out to a garbage can, out by the garage, that we drilled a bunch of holes through to allow air to it to speed up the composting process. When that bucket gets full, we transfer it to a composter that we bought/altered. It is an old damaged wooden bin that we bought from a farmer for $10. We made a lid, out of the old plywood sides of our utility trailer. We are hoping to buy another bin in the Spring to put grass clippings and leaves into.

Next, and slightly more exciting, the Vegetable and Perennial Garden. The hubby is tackling the vegetable garden. We are going to build a bed about 25' x 25' and divide it into four sections. Three will be his vegetables and the last will be my perennial starting garden. For Christmas, I gave him a couple of books on vegetable gardening so he could make a plan. He's been researching "companion gardening". Who knew that vegetables liked to be planted beside certain plants and weren't so impressed to be planted beside others. I didn't know vegetables were discriminating. Did you? We've made several trips out to Vesey's, a local place that has a huge mail order business, where he purchased the majority of his seeds. I had to order a few more online because we weren't able to find the hot peppers locally. Next was organizing them by planting date. Some of them have to be started inside in the winter...right about now actually. So he has a little cardboard box that he has them all stowed away in and I gave him a copy of my spreadsheet that I am using to organize himself (like he needs my help?). I'll have to get his list to tell you all that he has planned to plant. His plan for the architecture of the garden, besides the 4 plots, is to build a fence or lean to that he can plant some raspberries plants up against. The fence is also being made from some reclaimed wood that he obtained from a local kitchen cabinet company that was disposing of it. He's also now going to plant some blackberries, in honour of Rookie, and it will now become Rookie's garden.

Why? When we were living in North Van, the three of us used to walk to a local tennis court. While Ev and I played tennis, Rookie would run around the outside of the court, digging through the heavy bushes hunting out lost tennis balls. On our way home we would stop at the blackberry bushes that surrounded the park for a feast. While Ev & I feasted at the top of the bushes, Rookie would help himself to the berries on the lower half of the bushes. He loved him some blackberries. We'd have to pull him away to avoid tummy aches....or worse. So now, we are going to have a patch of our own.

Ev advised me the other day that he is now considering making raised beds, which only makes sense, about him. It plays to his strong sense of organization. That's a nice way of saying, he's a little obsessive-compulsive. I'm going to leave that decision to him and will keep you posted.

As for my perennial garden, I figured since perennials generally take two years to establish and flower, I decided to have a starter garden. This year I'll plant most of my perennials from seed inside, transfer them out to the starter garden and next year I will transfer them into flower beds. This will avoid having little straggly plants in my main flower beds and also helps to save a lot of money. You can spend a bundle on just a single plant yet buy a packet of perennial seeds for a couple of dollars and have a couple of dozen plants from it. Makes sense, right? I'm all about saving a buck and gaining the satisfaction of knowing I started my plants from seed.

To be continued.....