Project: Rose Containment

No, not that Rose:

Rose

This rose:

rose: in need of containment

 Or perhaps more generally, these roses:

Roses, in need of containment

They're growing over the fence and blocking the sidewalk and touching the ground.  Crazy.

They are out of control.  We got ourselves an archway trellis and after a few thorny scratches, some rope and zip ties, we're feeling much better:

Here's the view from the front:

We've been having good summer fun times lately, with more in store.  Last weekend we were at a fabulous Birthday party for Henry & Audrey, where there were a dozen children wielding water balloons and squirt guns.  Total mayhem.  After the party, I had this conversation with Lucy:

Me: OK Lucy, time to get ready for bed.
Lucy: I don't have to have a bath, do I?
Me: Hrm.  Let's see.  You were hit with several water balloons and numerous squirt guns, right?  I think that pretty much equals a bath.
Lucy: Yeah!

Mark that down as another Great Moment in Parenting, folks.

Our next door neighbor (who will be watching Norbert, the fish, while we're away) just stopped by to show us what she found:

He was in the middle of the road, with a lot of traffic flying by, so she picked him up.  Now he's in the pond in her backyard.  The girls are really excited:

I think it's a painted turtle.

Projects, Garden Update

You may recall from a previous post that we had a few bad pickets in the gate, which we've replaced with new ones finally:

The new neighbors across the street also had a bigger project done: they cut down a big tree. We're sad about this, as it was a lovely lovely lovely old tree. But apparently its roots was growing into their house and had collapsed one of their foundation walls. Yikes!
In (much) smaller projects, I did a bit of sewing this week, too. Last weekend, when we went to the artist studios, I was itching to do some crafting, so I took a bit of time to make this little bag:


The pocket there I made from a wool felt kit that Rose gave me (thanks, Rose!). The fabric is actually a (clean) canvas drop cloth (from the hardware store) that I had bought for some other long-ago and forgotten project. There's lots more of the canvas, so I might need to make some more bags.

Things in the garden get better every day. We've gone from this:

To this:
Lucy will have to go pick the ripe ones today.

The blueberries should be ready soon, too:
Last year's blueberries were a big hit with Lucy, so it's exciting to see the bountiful crop forming already. We're also hoping to get some raspberry bushes to plant in the backyard.

That's all for today. We're hoping to go to Lowell Riverfest for a bit tomorrow, if the weather holds out.

Jake has headed out for the weekend to do the Green Mountain Double Century. Here's the blurb the race organizer has put out:

205 miles, 80% dirt, 25,000 feet of climbing.

Yup. He's crazy.

Activities!

Today we had a very fun day of ACTIVITIES! We started out with a morning in Lexington, our fancy-schmancy city-next-door. We went to a very fun fair for kids at the Lexington Community Nursery School. There were games (with PRIZES -- a very exciting feature for Lucy) and a petting zoo and a bouncy house and all those sorts of things. The school is very very nice, but a bit too far away for us to really consider. But Lucy had a grand time winning at games like the bean bag toss, golf, croquet, and also the "wishing well" where kids tell the teen-kids running the wishing well which prize they want, then they get it. Nice.



After the fair (believe me, it was difficult to pull her away!), we went for lunch at Bertucci's. We tried to do a different local pizza place (Upper Crust) but sadly, they had nothing other than pizza, and we have a Very Picky Eater in the family (Lucy). Blargh. So we ended up at Bertucci's, which has pasta in butter. Also, they give the kids not just the regular set of crayons and an activity page: they gave her a piece of pizza dough! Genius! She very much enjoyed that, although not as much as the Hoodsie cup she got for dessert. In case you are not familiar with the concept of "Hoodsie cup," it is likely that you have seen such a thing in your life and called it a "Dixie cup," which is a little plastic thingie filled with ice cream -- in this case, chocolate and vanilla. They're called "hoodsie cups" around here because "Hood" is the major brand of milk, thus their ice cream cups are "hoodsie cups."



We ended up skipping the nap completely, as today was the first Saturday of the month, and as with most first Saturdays, it was Open Studios at Western Avenue Studios, and Lucy LOVES going there. So we spent the afternoon looking at art, talking to artists, meeting a bunch of lovely artist dogs (several of the artists have well-behaved, mellow dogs who hang out with them in their studios), and of course, hunting down candy. This is Lucy's favorite part of going to the studios, much to my chagrin. But we had a nice time and even found ourselves a new babysitter! Woo hoo!



In other news, we've been eating lots of delicious things. Jake picked a bunch of our rhubarb and made some up to go along with the panna cotta he made:





It was delicious! While I was off in Boston for a conference, I went out with some friends to a fabulous fancy restaurant called Menton, which was incredible. I am VERY sorry that Jake didn't join us (I owe him a visit there now!).



We've been slowly working on some small-scale home improvements, particularly in the yard. I finally got around to staining our new railing on the steps to the garden. We had had so much rain for so long that I had to wait a while for things to dry out.





I also stained a climbing ladder for the clematis,





And I painted a few replacement pickets for pieces on the fence that had fallen apart.



The gate kind of looks like it's missing some teeth:



Jake will be installing them tomorrow. Hopefully I can do an update then. I should do a garden update, too. But this is all for now.

Garden Edition!

We spent a bit of time this weekend on outdoor improvements. We're in the process of fixing the fence, which has a few broken pickets. We found some replacement ones, which we cut to size, and if it ever dries out, I'll be painting them this week and Jake will install them. I'll get some pictures up when I get some (it's raining right now and has been for the afternoon).

We're also waiting for things to dry out so that we can stain our new railing, which makes our steps down to the garden a bit more safe.



In garden news, the rhubarb is looking great!

Jake even made some rhubarb compote for me for Mother's Day. It's exciting to see this plant really thriving. The strawberries are flowering, which is a great sign, too. The sage plant is out of control, and some other herbs (chives, and parsley, I think) have returned again this year.

This weekend we planted some new herbs (pictures forthcoming soon), including thai basil, thyme, lemon geranium, basil, and.....shoot, I've forgotten. I'll update later. We got starts for three tomato plants, kale, and a hot pepper plant. We're going small this year, as we'll be away quite a bit this summer. Still, we do love fresh tomatoes from the garden. We also got a little lime tree.

We did our garden shopping at a great local place, Mahoney's Garden center (the Chelmsford one). We're hoping to go back in a couple weeks to get tomatillos, and perhaps some raspberry plants, too.

We spent part of our day today at the reservoir with Ruth & Woody & Matt & Mary. The photo evidence is on Flickr. The girls are hilarious together. We also spent a bit of time at Carter's old school, All Breeds, where they had a big open house festival thing. Carter got lots of loving from his old friends (and lots of treats for good behavior).

Trouble brewing

This afternoon we'll start growing our first crop of mushrooms with our lovely kit. Lucy is VERY excited about it, and has been glowing about how she can't wait to eat mushrooms. We found this surprising (not the excitement, which is her general state, but the claim that she will EAT them, as she doesn't eat much), but went with it. At some point yesterday, she explained that she remembered that Aunt Kathy gave her mushrooms one time and she loved them. And that's when we realized why she's so excited: the "mushrooms" that Aunt Kathy gave her were meringue mushrooms, as seen here:
They're sugar and chocolate, so OF COURSE she liked them. I'm a little nervous about what happens when she realizes what oyster mushrooms are.

The kit is cute, but we did find the product advertising a bit misleading. As you can see on the image, the box claims "Open. Mist. Harvest." Cool. Sounds super-easy. In fact, in between "open" and "mist, there is a step called "take out the package and submerge the entire thing in a bucket of cold water for 24 hours, using something heavy to make sure the thing stays submerged under water." Now, this isn't really that much work, but it does involve hunting around your house to find these things, not to mention an extra 24 hours before you really set up the growing box. Oh well. I guess they couldn't fit all that on the box.

Signs of Spring!

It's coming!

Yard update

While Jake and I were able to make some headway in the backyard clean-up project, we decided to hire our wall-building neighbor to do the heavy-duty work. He finished the roto-tilling today! Check it out:





We're figuring out now what to do next. Roland has suggested we hire someone to hydro-seed the backyard, and then in select areas (like around the holly tree and up on one of the levels at the side of the house) we get crushed rock (rather than mulch). Any suggestions, readers?

Walls! Done! Hooray!

For this post, I only have pictures of the front garden wall, but both the front and back walls are indeed complete! Hooray. I'll try to get shots of the backyard wall to post tomorrow. We're hoping to get out there and work on the weeding and cleaning up of the yard then.

Lucy checks out the new steps:



That last step is very tall; we're going to add in some tall pavers at the bottom to bring that height up to the right level.
We need to do some weeding and general clean-up here. Also, Jake needs to re-install the pavers for the area where the grill goes. Actually, it has been suggested that we maybe expand this little patio area here. Hmmmmm.

The rhubarb and tomato plants were preserved. A lot of strawberry plants and all of the jerusalem artichokes bit the dust. Most of the herb area is in tact, which is nice.

OK, more tomorrow! It's HOT here!

Rock on

Progress on the front yard garden wall continues. Here are a few shots:





Work continues tomorrow. Updates as warranted.

The Wall...day, uh, something

OK, so I've lost track of the exact timeline of the wall project, but I thought I would post an update. The project has now grown in scope. Seeing as we had Roland here, and since he was clearly doing a bang-up job, we thought perhaps we should have him take a look at the OTHER rotting timber wall, this one in the front of the house. We've known for a while that it was rotting, and in fact, Jake had recently re-attached the steps that lead down from the deck because they had rotted out. It was a bad scene, with some serious dangerousness surrounding not only safe passage from the deck/kitchen down to the garden, but also, the wall was clearly host to various critters of the sort that like to eat wood. Given that they were having quite a feast on the rotting timber, it was only a matter of time until they started munching on far more important wood, like our house.

So we signed on to have Roland take out the rotting timber walls around the garden, and replace with a stone wall. He'll also put in new limestone steps. These will be much safer. There is one downside -- Carter will lose his wallow, the space under the wooden steps where he would sometimes hide on hot days. But we'll have to build him a doghouse replacement, because this is a better solution.

I haven't been able to get out to the back to update you on the backyard project, but here's the status of the garden wall (or, as you can see, lack thereof):


Wow, I always wanted to see a cross-section of the ground underneath our house! Yikes! (that's where the steps were)


The guys have promised that the plants above the wall (like the hydrangeas and lilies) will all be fine. They also know to protect the rhubarb and a couple of tomato plants, as well as the herb garden section. The strawberries, though, are taking a beating. Oh, and the Jerusalem artichokes were ripped out. But the thing is, they were becoming a bit of an infestation anyway, so we're not too worried about them.
The team should be back on Monday to put down gravel here, and also to finish up with the rock building out back. It's all very exciting. Stay tuned.

Spring Update

We're just now getting into the swing of Spring here at 83 Durant. We had an extended visit to the Northwest in late March/early April, and we're very thankful for the good folks who put us up, fed us, entertained Lucy (and us) and were so lovely. Thanks, family & friends!
Lucy had a grand time on the trip watching and joining in antics with her cousins. Easter was particularly fun. Lucy was born to hunt Easter eggs. She also found jelly beans quite agreeable.

Upon our return we found the garden turning lively. The daffodils are in full bloom and the hostas are beginning their invasion. The strawberries are also sending our runners, and we've enjoyed having fresh chives, too. Hooray! It also appears that the rhubarb plant is back. Also, there's a lovage plant that's looking quite sturdy. What does one do with lovage? We don't know, so if you have some recipes, send them our way.

Also back are the carpenter bees. Ugh. The tell-tale piles of sawdust appeared out on the back deck again, and we found the holes up under the railing. I did the bee-killing on Thursday evening and plan to patch up the holes once the rain lets up.

Update: I have patched the holes with some plastic wood filler, and man, those things were deep. I should have tried to measure, but I was focused on filling the holes up. It used a lot of plastic wood filler. I was horrified to learn from this helpful yet scary site that "Carpenter bee tunnels as long as 10 feet have been discovered in some buildings." Seriously? 10 feet? Hopefully ours weren't that deep.

Garden Update 2009

Here's our little array of plants for this year. We kept it a bit smaller and are trying to focus on stuff that will keep coming back, hence, rhubarb!

Speaking of things that come back, last year, we planted some Jerusalem artichokes. We harvested them at the end of the season. When we dug up some of the garden to put in the patio, we discovered a ton of new Jerusalem artichokes...apparently they send out a lot of "volunteers" and it's likely we'll never be rid of them now. Anyone have any good recipes for Jerusalem Artichokes?

Since the backyard is a bit of a jungle, we decided that it made some sense to move the grill around to the front. Since it's hard for us to find much time to spend in the garden, we thought we'd give over some of our garden plot space to the grilling area. Jake put in a small patio area using some randomly shaped flagstones. It looks great and it's very convenient to the kitchen for grilling purposes!


We got a few tomato plants -- sunny yellow little ones, something called "Mr. Stripey," and "Sweet 100s"


Here's Carter, checking to make sure we've put everything in the right place. This is the herb patch.


We put in some oregano and some loveage (yup, that's really the name of a plant!). Last year's sage and tyme and chives came back -- they're actually pretty huge. Nice


When we put in this year's plants, we discovered that last year's strawberries had really taken over the plot (along with the mint!). We dug up a bunch of the strawberry plants and put them in this lovely strawberry pot. They are thriving in their new pot. YUM!


We did all this on Mothers' Day weekend. Everything is looking good so far. We're still trying to find a couple of tomatillo plants. We grew some last year and they did great, providing us with green salsa well into October. If you get lead on tomatillo plants in Lowell, let us know!

Garden Delights; Lucy Grows Up

We've been overrun with produce lately. Check out all the stuff that was in our farm share this week:

Amazing!

And these are the tomatoes we picked from our very own garden:

And here is the deliciousness that Jake made with the tomatoes:

It's getting totally out of control in our tomato plant patch. We also harvested a huge batch of tomatillos, and made some delicious green salsa with them. YUM!

In non-produce-related news, over the past week, Lucy has grown up a bit. Or maybe, more appropriately, we have finally acknowledged that she has grown a bit. First, we decided to retire the baby swing. While it didn't list a specific size or weight limit, it did say "discontinue use when baby becomes too active." The very squirmy Lucy definitely qualifies, and since she seems to try to grab the bars as she swings past, it seemed like this was the time to migrate the swing to the basement.

Yesterday, I finally put an end to the very very very much over-taxed bassinet. This lovely bassinet has served us well. In fact, it sets an age limit of 3 months and a weight limit of 15 pounds. Lucy has long since surpassed these markers, but we continued to use it for diaper changes and bath prep, because it made things easier. We never leave her in it unattended, so it seemed like it was a reasonable place to put her for a fresh diaper or to undress her for the bath. On Thursday night, however, she showed me a new trick. She's become very squirmy when she's being changed, and her favorite thing to do is to flip herself over onto her front just when you're trying to get the wet/dirty diaper off. Nice trick. Since the bassinet is small and confining, she not only flipped herself over, but got herself up on all fours and started rocking. Her rocking meant that the entire bassinet was shaking. This didn't seem like a good thing. So bye-bye bassinet. You have served us well.

I'm actually not that sad to see these two items move on, as they were really taking up a lot of room in the dining room. Nice to have that space back, just in time for Lucy to start crawling (any day now).

July Garden Update

I'm afraid we've been pretty neglectful of the garden, and yet, it seems to thrive. As you can see here, we're tremendously overgrown with weeds, but the stuff we actually planted doesn't seem to mind sharing the fertile wealth with the weeds.

The herb garden is seriously overgrown, but luckily, it's overgrown with herbs!


The sage and the basil have really thrived. The cilantro got too tall and flowered, and then apparently spread itself everywhere. We actually have cilantro growing in our lawn. It makes for a nice smell when we mow the lawn!

A lot of flowers have arrived -- currently we have lots of lilies in white and pink in front of the house. The bees seem very happy:


Our tomatillos are very happy with all the warm, wet weather:

I did a little bit of weeding earlier this week, and while I was ripping stuff out, I was thrilled to discover some little shoots of a rhubarb plant!

They were buried under the weeds! Hopefully their new access to sunlight will help them grow. We won't be eating any rhubarb from the garden this year, but this little plant will hopefully come back next year to get our crop started.
The Jerusalem Artichokes have taken off. They're very tall, and I can only hope that their tubers are growing as well as their green tops are:

There's also an onion growing quite well, though it's a bit hidden in the artichokes.
Carter has been doing his best to keep up with eating all the grass that crops up in the garden. He's a helpful dog.


We'll be off for some family visits soon, so this may be the only July post. Who knows what the garden will look like by August?