Izzy and Murphy playing Tag

Most recently, my cat and dog have decided that they are friends, and play often. This is my first successful attempt at video taping them run around the house. 

I am posting for my friend Jean and Ray the Blind Dog.

Enjoy!

Rachel

Lettuce, Spinach, and Bush Beans, Oh My!

It was so disappointing last year to see our lovely big yard go to waste. We just didn't have the time or the money to invest in it.

I really didn't want to miss out again on having a garden this year.So we had to at least get one raised bed ready for late April....And I'm happy to report that we made the deadline!

Earlier in the week, we went by Home Depot and purchased two of these cedar bed kits.

We had toyed around with the idea of purchasing and building the cedar beds (to fill a 15'x6' spot) from scratch (around $500-700 dollars for material and hardware)...and decided that these '$80 dollars a pop' cedar beds could do the trick for a few years. The only downside is that it reaches a full height of about 14 inches above the ground. I had been hoping to go a little higher to keep the animals out, but we will see how this works. I may build a net system to cover my little seedlings.

 

Josh happened to be out of town and I was bored, so I got up early Saturday and started the assembly process. The bed goes together really well. The leveling of the ground and digging of the trenches took me much longer. All in all, it took me about 5 hours (the frame took about 20 minutes). Oh, and as usual, the animals were O' So Helpful....

 

This is how large the bed will be when we add the second half. Got to get rid of that pesky stump first...

 Once Josh got back in to town, he helped me mix the soil and spread it out in the bed. I used a mixture of the existing clay/soil, sand, and garden soil for vegetables. I have already planted my spinach seeds as well as my salad mix seeds. My indoor seeds are also all set up. That includes lavender and bell peppers. In about a week or two, I will be planting the bush beans and the cucumbers, right after the last frost date (I'm guessing, since the weather has been so funky).

So, it's coming together and I can't wait to get the second bed in so I can have my herb garden. I will definitely be posting pictures of our fresh veggies this summer. Did I mention that we got 10 bags of mulch from the local boyscout troop? Woohoo! I will post pictures of what we do with that....even if it is just leaving them neatly stack in our driveway, Har Har.

Cheers,

 

Rachel

 

Finally Getting Around to Yard Work

That's right. Yard work. It's only taken us a year, but we finally got around to changing things. Mostly this first year, we've focused on getting furniture into the house, which is expensive when you move in with 2 chairs, a bed, 3 dressers, and a tv. 

We were noticing that our front yard near the driveway looked...well, pretty lame and sad. Without spending oodles of money, we came up with a relatively cheap idea to make our yard look a little more decent. For some unknown reason to us, the person we bought the house from had placed tiny bushes all along both sides of the driveway. Real cute, until you opened a car door and slammed them, or perhaps stepped on them and broke them into a million pieces (ahem, Josh). So we went ahead and pulled those bushes up. The mulch beds that they were in had begun to be taken over by the grass and clover from the main part of the yard. Not so pretty....

Home Depot Trip Findings

The "Not so Pretty" Front Yard

Attempting to make a straight line

Attempting to level

Izzy helping

Adding the weedblock

Adding borders and gravel

Ta Da!

So, it's still a little rough around the edges, but I think we are making progress!


Next up for the front yard:

- New mulch for the beds closest to the house
- Flower bed around the tree in the yard
- Attempting to remove clover from yard and replace with grass

We will see what happens.....

Cheers,

Rachel