Attempting to post some pictures...

So this is the front of the house. This picture was taken at the beginning of last summer. At this time we have taken out all of the shrubs from the front of the house and have cut off the lower branches of the tree to the right.



This is the back of the house. This was also taken at the beginning of last summer. Throughout the summer, the vines that you see growing up the downspout on the left, grew up to the second floor and across the ground next to the house, including inside the siding and around the inside of the door and window frames. And thick. We were able to remove it, but there are still sprouts that try to make a comeback every once in a while. All of the other weeds/plants from that area are gone now, and the area is waiting to be sodded. On the other side of the door is the air conditioner unit (behind the bush), which we worked on yesterday. The "problem area" is on the other side of the driveway by the garage, but you can't see it because there is a construction dumpster in the way. Oh, and we've also removed the light post in the middle of the yard. It was gass-feuled and didn't work. It was also ugly and rusted.



And while I'm at it, these are our puppies. Sara is on the left, Alice on the right.

How the Earth Recycles Itself:

It all starts with dirt. A plant grows there. The plant gets big, and turns into a tree. The tree's leaves fall off, onto the dirt. The leaves sit there for years and years, docomposing. Eventually, the leaves decompose to the point that they do not look like leaves anymore. They are, in fact, dirt again. This dirt does not go away. It just piles up.

This is literally what happened in our yard. At the side of our driveway there is a retaining wall, next to which is a gigantic oak tree. The tree loses fifteen-thousand-bajillion leaves per day in the fall. A large percentage of these leaves get trapped next to the retaining wall, which also happens to be a plant bed. Our very first landscaping project this fall was to clear out the eight tons of rotting leaves from this bed in order to finally free the plants that were suffocating below them. First layer was dry leaves. Second layer, wet leaves. The third layer was a thicker paste of wet, matted leaves. The fourth layer was a smelly, rotted, black mush. Then the fifth layer: dirt. A huge mound of dirt. We have recently taken three wheel-barrels full of dirt away from this area, which only just barely uncovered the two feet of driveway where the dirt spilled over onto the concrete. The dirt is still probably another six inches above the level it should be in the actual bed. This is the "problem area" I noted in my last post.

Last night we did a little more work outside. We dug a few wheel-barrel loads of dirt out from around the air conditioner unit and leveled the area, prepping it to bring some of the front rock to the back. After this work was done, we grilled some hot dogs and discussed the "problem area."

We've decided to dig out the salvagable plants (there are some spectacular hostas growing there, presumably because they have been fertilized so well over the past twenty years of leaves - there are also a few tulips). We'll use the existing soil and a little fertilzer to put them in outdoor pots. We will remove the remaining soil to a few inches below the level of the driveway, then cover the area with rock fromt the front yard and put the new pots on top of the rock bed.

We're still not sure what to do about the area above the retaining wall, but I think we are going to try sodding the area. It may do okay, but we're worried that it won't get enough water, as the sprinkler system is not set up for coverage over there. We'll see, I guess. It will only be a couple of pieces of sod, so not too much wasted if it doesn't work. Another idea would be to plant some shrubs there for privacy (and to cover up the nieghbor's ugly fence), but then there is still the question of what to do for ground cover. Most important to me is that it not have the opportunity to get severely overgrown like it did before I pulled everything out.

So those are my thoughts for today. I'll try to get pictures of this stuff up at some point, but it takes some effort as my computer won't allow me to add pics when I post. I'll figure it out though.

So, what's new with me?

The new season of kickball starts today, and we are in the midst of a running experiment. We have been running in the mornings before work, three times a week. Yep, up at 4:45am. It's painful when the alarm goes off, but once I'm out of bed, I'm okay. But just so people don't think that all I do is run and play kickball, I'll divulge a bit more today.

So most people know that we spent every second of last summer remodeling our house. The inside of the house is - for the most part - done at this point, but the exterior is another story.

The siding is probably 30 years old, which is fine. But it has probably been just as long since it's been cleaned. It's also a very 70s blue. We'd like at some point to have it painted a medium grey-green, and possibly add some more decorative elements & wider window trim. In the meantime, however, we will settle for a good cleaning. This, we hope to accomplish by mid-summer. We're hoping it's not stained at this point.

In addition, we will try our hand at fine woodwork. Okay, so more like a relatively simple project that invovles building out the columns at the front porch. At this time they are 4x4 wood posts, which practically dissappear. We plan to build them out to a size closer to 8x8, with wide trim bands at the top & bottom.

We have also been trying to tame this jungle we call landscaping. The trees & shrubs have quite possibly not been pruned for decades, and the sidewalks, driveway, and rock gardens leave just as much to be desired. Oh, but wouldn't we love to impliment an entirely new beautiful plan? Well, in due time. At this point, however, we can only afford to remove. So that's what we've been doing. We started a few weeks ago with severely pruning back a lilac tree, pruning a few low branches from a couple of larger trees, mowing down every last shrub in the front yard, and hacking down a rather annoying tree that was growing out from the foundation of the house, and in front of our south living room window. Dustin also managed to pull up about 20ft of black plastic edging that had been, over the years, buried about 6 inches below the top of the soil. This past week we used an edge-cutter along the driveway and gained about a foot on either side. Used the extra dirt & grass to fill in a mysterious gaping hole in the back yard, and used the good pieces of recovered grass to patch over the top of the dirt. This weekend we did the same thing along the front walk, and filled in some more holes in the front yard with dirt shoveled from an overflowing bed next to the driveway. We also raked up a good portion of the matted, dead grass from the front yard and seeded the bare spots. Next we plan to clear out all of the rock, plastic, and stumps from the front yard. Then replace it with new sod up to the foundation. We will also sod the side yard, which used to consist of weeds and the annoying tree. We will sod a small area along the back of the foundation as well. We will dig out the excess dirt and growth from around the air conditioner in the back yard and transplant some of the rock from the front yard to that area. We still have a problem area along the side of the driveway to deal with, which we have not decided on yet. It is a steep drop, with a retaining wall and gets very little water or sun. It's bare dirt at this point, which is wearing on my non-gardening nerves. I've managed to get all of the really thick weeds out of there, but the small, everyday weeds still persist. My landscaping motto is "No exposed soil."

So once we get this next sodding project taken care of, I will probably buy a few large potted evergreen shrubs to put at the front and back doors. But then, that's it for at least a few years. I know those gardening types are feeling a slight pain in their hearts as I talk about removing everything and sodding up to the foundation. But such is the life of a non-gardener. And such is my budget.

As for the indoors, there are still a few small areas in need of work. There's the "other" spare room, which has yet to be painted or cleared of the construction debris from last summer. Hey, the very definition of "spare" is that which you do not need. We'll get to it when we are good and ready.

There's also the office, which has decidedly become the landing place for anything and everything that we do not immediately need - and Dustin's poker room. We have aquired a free sleeper-sofa for this room, however, which is great... but has been added to the list of projects - recover sofa.

Along with these projects are: hang light fixture in main bath, glue peeling wallpaper in bathroom, new paint in half-bath, sew curtains for living room, locate/frame/hang pictures throughout house, finish sewing pillow covers for living room throw pillows, finish tapestry for master bedroom, hang shelves in bedroom, clean garage, organize sewing supplies, and a huge list of other small projects. All which we would, of course, like to finish this summer.

Getting these things done should be highly possible, considering that we are out of town or busy for every weekend but one, into September. We'll have plenty of spare time.

So if you're wondering if I ever do anything but run and play children's playground games...

End of the Spring season.

So we played our final plyoff game last night. It was a villiant effort, but in the end we lost 9-5. We had a great team this season, and we are going to try to get into the summer league, which starts in two weeks. Go Balls!

We won!

We won our kickball game yesterday, 7-4. So we will be playing one more playoff game next week. If we win that game, we will play for the championship! Woo!