We are gearing up here to do a ton of work around here. With the arrival of house guests, we always feel that push to get things completed inside and outside our home. New houses are a fair bit of work. Sometimes I wish we cold have had a half brand new house and a half old house, just so we wouldn't have to worry about things like buying blinds, basic landscaping, yet still have the nice new appliances and not worry about old house problems.
Nathan and I finally, FINALLY painted the hallway yesterday. It is a shame that we have no more rooms to paint (don't tell him I said that) because we have gotten so skilled at taping off and painting quickly and efficiently. We had 7 doorways to tape around and we still banged it out in about 4 hours, if you don't include our break to watch True Blood. It is the same chocolate brown as our guest bath and makes a real difference in tying all the rooms together. I am just excited not to have to paint anymore.
Today, I thought I would show you or backyard landscaping progress:
This is our path we had put in a couple months ago that ties into our front driveway. We had anticipated having the sides filled in by now, but you know... stuff happens. The left side will just be sanded in up to the level of concrete with some decorative stone artfully laid out. the right side will be filled in with dirt for planting. you can see we started to nail up a rubber edger to keep the dirt from going through the fence or rotting it, but we only got part of it up. I am hoping to at least get this finished before winter comes. The pipe running along side already gets water, just have to tap it.
Today, we got TREES! The far left is a really beautiful maple with these mixed plummy green leaves which will grow big enough to shade the pond. The one on the right is an ornamental cherry tree. We picked it because we wanted a colorful tree, but not a very common one. Everyone here always seems to have ornamental plum trees and we just couldn't stand being the same. And the center one is a fruit-bearing cherry tree. Which means we will have cherries next year, assuming it doesn't have a shock season. Anyone for cherry pie?
This also shows you the current state of our pond. We ran out of rock early on and we decided to wait til it gets cooler to finish it since hauling heavy rock in 100 degree weather is not our idea of fun. We have been testing out the best way to keep the rocks from shifting, and have settled on sand with a top coat of pea gravel. We just have to wait til it is cooler to finish that as well.
Meanwhile, we have been babying this part of our yard:
Our raised bed.
The plant in the red ribbed pot is a roma tomato plant laden with green tomatoes. The one on the right fell victim to too much rain so the seeds got washed away. Our raised bed has been a bit of trial and error. We have numerous okra plants which are putting out tons of okra and flowers right now (they go from flower to okra really fast). Our cucumber plants have taken over most of the rest of the bed and we might just have a HUGE abundance of them, since they are already baby pickle sized. Cucumber salad anyone?
Everything else has either been anemic or has not made it. We have only used a bit of Miracle-Gro as a fertilizer, mostly because the animals hang out outside. Lilly especially is allergic to all sorts of things and I didn't want to risk it. We have had almost no bug problems with the exception of that one giant caterpillar who got re-homed a couple weeks back, and the aphids that seemed to like our dying radish crop. All the other bugs have been bees, yellow jackets, ladybugs, butterflies, and TONS of dragonflies of every color and size.
You can also see into the bottom of our pond:
The sunlight makes photos of the water come out a funny color, but I promise, it is clear and clean. Don't mind the pipes. Once we get the rest of the rock in place, the pipe will be mostly out of view, and you wont be able to see the liner hardly at all. We will also be adding aquatic plants. We would have picked some up this weekend, but they were all sold out except for one, and when I went back to get a price on it, someone had already pilfered it!
I do have to say, I can't wait to have everything complete and in place on the pond, I absolutely hate leaving things half-done, so it kills me to have to stare at excess pipe that I can't cut until I have it properly placed, or electrical cords that are all over the place because we don't have the landscaping done enough to cover them. Talk about a lesson in dealing with the imperfect!
Well, just to prove we do have Koi, here's a close-up of them finally being less skittish:
It is hard to get a clear view of them with the sun giving the water such glare. They are over double their original size already. I don't know if you can tell, but each one is different so we could tell them apart. We have finally seen 2 of the plecostomus in with them, and they are very happy. The koi like to bully them when they are out so they stay in hiding mostly. Now that we now we aren't fish murderers, we will likely be buying more Koi soon. Hopefully the better species...
Enjoy your Monday!