Starting Small: Front Yard
27 May 2012 1 Comment
in front yard
Picking back up from my “Starting Small: Back Yard” post, I’ve also been doing some spiffing up in the front yard.
When we moved into our house, the postal service required that we install a curbside mailbox, which we promptly did. But I loved the attached mailbox and didn’t want to remove it, thinking that one day we could paint it. And paint it we’ve done . . . a mere nine years later ;-).
It’d been black, and I bought primer and white paint for it earlier this month, with the intention of turning it into a planter. My hubby surprised me on Mother’s Day by primering and painting it before I ever woke up! Last week I picked up some Boxwood Basil and a couple small flowering plants and got those going. I love that when we walk out the front door we immediately get a whiff of basil.
The area in front of our living room window has always been a challenge as far as getting things to grow there. It gets a bit of morning sun, but otherwise is pretty shady.
The window boxes + planter stands are ones we’ve had a while; I added Boxwood Basil, Coleus, and three varieties of flowering plants. The birdbath is one we had near a side fence in the back yard for the past several years, but birds never visited it so I moved it up to the front yard and now it’s quite the popular attraction! That makes me very happy =).
I’d like to paint the planter stands so you can actually see them, and I have lots of ideas of things I’d like to add to help fill in the areas on either side of and around the planter stands and birdbath. I figure it will take time to get that done, but I’m looking forward to working on it in bits and pieces.
The ground cover beginning to fill in in this area of the front yard survives quite well in shade, in drought, and in our 100+ degree summer heat, so we’re going to let it continue to fill in. We’re not fans of hedges, so there won’t be any of those being planted — I imagine we’ll use mostly (only?) pots and planters and things that can function as planters. One of the projects I’d like to tackle this summer is repainting the maroon trim to a much lighter, more neutral color — probably the same color you see around the top of the porch. That maroon color was one of those live-n-learn color lessons on my part ;-). Getting rid of it should allow the eye to be drawn to the pretty things in the yard and to the house as a whole, rather than directly to the window and house trim.
We like to have lots of things growing in pots and planters on our front porch, which doesn’t leave much room for patio furniture. However, right now we have the perfect spot underneath the covered part of our porch for a small table and two chairs:
That area just to the right of the door looks like it’d comfortably fit a small round wrought iron table + two chairs — a set like this, for example. (On our “one of these days” list is to replace our front door, and I’d also like to swap out the porch light.)
I’m hoping to hit some garage sales this summer, as well as the flea market, to pick up some doodads to help me continue to “prettify” our front yard. I have all sorts of ideas jotted down of things I want to find; now I just need to get out there and start looking!
Waiting
25 May 2012 2 Comments
When I went out to gather eggs this morning, one of our chickens was in the process of laying, blocking access to the two other eggs already laid in that particular box. So I grabbed something to munch on + a magazine + my camera, pulled the patio table and chairs over to the shade by our new birdbath and plants, and propped up my feet for a while.
Annie was waiting, too (alongside our chicken-pen boots). She’s always alert to any potential opportunity to dart between my feet and get into the pen and chase chickens ;-).
Starting Small: Back Yard
23 May 2012 2 Comments
in back yard
My awake/sleep schedule is quickly shifting, allowing me more daylight hours for enjoying our yard. The prospect of being able to enjoy being outdoors this summer before the heat of the day sets in has spurred me to do some spiffing up.
Being a novice Green Thumb, I’ve been getting lots of ideas online (as mentioned in this post), I’ve been spending lots of time wandering around the home improvement store’s garden center and making note of the amount of sunlight each of the various plants requires, I’ve been paying attention to what type of sun the various areas of our yard I want to spiff up receive, and I’ve been thinking about how I want each of those areas to function.
I’m starting small in two different areas: one in the back yard and one in the front yard.
In the back yard, I want to pretty-up the area in front of the section of the garden/chicken-area fence that we see when we walk out our back door. My Mother’s Day windchimes are hanging there, and I’ve added a birdbath, a low trellis that reminds me of a girly headboard, and two pots with plants.
The yellow-flowered plant in the green pot is Lantana — we used to have lantana in our front yard and that is some hardy stuff, surviving even last summer’s severe drought and three-months-plus of 100+ degree days. I love lantana. I believe the pink-flowered plant is Pentas.
I don’t recall the name of the vining plant with the beautiful red flowers, in the light-colored flower pot. I’ll look next time I’m at the garden center and write it down, in case it works out well and I want more of it next year.
I’m hoping those flowers will attract a hummingbird or two and/or some honeybees. Although I could’ve vined that plant directly on the fence, I was concerned if I did so the chickens would peck it to pieces, thus the addition of the trellis. (Plus, the trellis is purty!)
There are two trees that shade most of that area, so we’ll see how these plants do with a little early-day sun and late-day sun.
The privacy fence to the left will be replaced at some point this year, so we don’t want to do any planting near it until after it’s been replaced.
I’ll sit on the back steps in the coming days and think about what else I want to add in this area. A sitting area of some sort would be nice — maybe a covered porch swing (covered, because the birds do like to roost in the shade trees above!). Some place where I can stretch out and read in the shade or sit and chat with my fellas, while watching the dogs and chickens and squirrels and birds.
I’m out of time for blogging tonight, so will show my “starting small” front yard spiffing-up in my next post =).
Squash Abundance + Cluckies
22 May 2012 2 Comments
in back yard, chickens, food talk, garden, kitchen
Our yellow squash plants are producing like crazy, so we had the opportunity yesterday to try out our new dehydrator and new vacuum sealer. New kitchen toys = wheeeeee!!
The four packages in the top row contain squash chips — thinly-sliced and salted yellow squash that was dehydrated, and which can be eaten like potato chips. That’s nine trays’ worth of dehydrated squash, which was something like ten or eleven raw squash.
The packages in the bottom row are the squash that wouldn’t fit in the dehydrator — my hubby blanched and froze them. They’ll be good cooked and tossed with butter or olive oil, or added to soups or stews. That was another six or seven squash.
And there are more on the vines ready to be picked!! I’ll be doing some more dehydrating tomorrow ;-).
Our dehydrator is the Excalibur 9-Tray 3900 (no timer), purchased through Excalibur’s website. Our vacuum sealer is a Food Saver V3460, purchased at Bed Bath & Beyond using a 20% off coupon, which you can get when you first sign up to be on their email list. I plan to purchase the wide-mouth jar sealer, which BB&B did not have, so that we can make use of the bazillion mason jars we have around here, which can be re-used time and again, unlike the Food Saver bags. We love the dehydrator and the vacuum sealer, both, and look forward to getting plenty of use out of them this growing season!!
I’m making use of the vacuum sealer to take larger quantities of items that are in our freezer and putting them into more useful portion sizes. Today I took what was left in our gallon pail of Tropical Traditions organic unsweetened coconut flakes (it was about one-fourth to one-third full still) and packaged up eighteen packages of 1/4-cup servings of coconut flakes. They’ll stay fresher longer in the small vacuum-sealed packages, as compared to being in the big pail.
I’ll do the same thing with the organic raw walnuts and the organic raw almonds in our freezer — they are the BEST-tasting walnuts I’ve ever had! but I’ve been too chicken to try the almonds yet — the potential for my body to negatively react in some way or another to them is high and I’m not willing, yet, to suffer the consequences if they don’t work out for me. So I’ll package the nuts up into small serving sizes and then they’ll stay fresh in our freezer for a good long while.
The vacuum sealer overheats quickly, so during the times when I was waiting for it to cool off enough to be ready to work again, I took my camera out back and had fun taking some snapshots.
I’d never really been around chickens before we got our own, and I’m still, eight months later, in awe of the beauty of their feathers:
Don’t let their beauty fool you, though — survival of the fittest is very much a part of their lives! They will peck each other in order to steal a juicy morsel (worm, beetle, moth, whatever) right out of the other’s mouth. One day my hubby watched one of them attack a sparrow that’d landed inside the pen/garden area to eat some grain. If they see you holding something that appears to them to be edible, they’ll jump and flap to try to snatch it out of your hands. I’m thinking that I don’t want to have an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” moment around those girls ;-) . . . can you imagine calling Life-Alert and explaining THAT scenario!!
For Mother’s Day, my fellas surprised me with this huge, beautiful set of windchimes:
On the days the weather’s been nice enough to have the doors open, I’ve so enjoyed listening to the music of these chimes. They remind me of what I would expect to hear in a Buddhist temple. They bring a sense of relaxation and peace, when I hear them ever so softly chiming. I really do get the best Mother’s Day gifts from my fellas!!
Blog Design Feedback Requested
21 May 2012 6 Comments
in chit-chat
While I’m not particularly looking to have a large blog readership, I *do* want my blog to be easy to read and I want information to be easy to find for those of you who are already regular readers or who are potential regular readers.
1. Is the background design appealing? Or is it distracting?
2. Is there anything you would find it helpful for me to include in the sidebar, or on a separate page that’s linked in the sidebar or in one of the header tabs?
When I visit other blogs, I like having access to a “search” box, a list of categories, and the blog archives, so I’ve included those things in my sidebar. What other things do y’all like to see?
I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a blogroll, maybe on a separate page of its own. Do y’all actually make use of blogrolls on other blogs?
3. If you often read but seldom comment, if it’s because there’s a hurdle in the commenting process, please do let me know.
If there’s any other feedback you have, I’m all ears =).
Yard Inspiration: 5-17-2012
17 May 2012 2 Comments
in front yard
Our weather this May has been a welcome change — lots of rain and comfortable temps. This time last year we were already baking in 100+ degree (F.) temps and suffering from a lack of rain. I definitely prefer this May’s weather over last May’s!
One thing about this nice weather is that it’s given me the illusion we can plant lots of pretties outdoors and they’ll actually survive the summer ;-). I like this illusion, however, and will hang onto it as long as possible into the summer!!
I hope to snap some in-progress pics of the front yard over the weekend because I’d like to get some feedback about the area around our living room window. In the meantime though, I want to share the link to a blog that I’ve found very inspirational: Cozy Little House.
Blog owner Brenda moved into her Little Blue House last fall and is in the process of beautifying her yard. She’s accomplished more gardening in a few month’s time than I’ve accomplished in nearly a decade!!
(The wonderful veggie beds in our front yard are a credit to my hubby’s green thumb. My green thumb is still very much in-training LOL.)
Brenda has quite the knack for creating wonderful gardenscapes, and I particularly love the fairy gardens she’s created over the years. If you need some yard-beautifying inspiration, I encourage you to get lost in Brenda’s blog!!
(I’m also enamoured with, and inspired by, how Brenda decorates the interior of her home — it’s very much right up my alley!)
My Summertime Around-the-House Projects
15 May 2012 2 Comments
in bedrooms, exterior of house, hallway, workspace
Our kiddo has some fun plans lined up for part of this summer, leaving this homeschooling mama with more time on her hands than she’s ever had these past nearly-14 years. It will be a weird feeling for me, no doubt about it, so I’ve decided to put that kid-free time to good use and tackle some around-the-house projects that tend to be challenging to tackle when you’re in “mama mode”.
1. Repaint our kiddo’s bedroom.
It’s time to update our son’s room from that of a younger boy to that of a teen. It’s not the painting that will be challenging, rather it’ll be moving everything out and getting it set up temporarily elsewhere in the house so he can have access to his important stuff for the 3 or 4 days it’ll take me to spiff up his walls! I’d like to use the same light, neutral color we used in the living room/dining room/kitchen since his room doesn’t get much natural light, especially during winter. I also want to switch him from a full-size bed to a twin-size bed so he has more floor space.
2. Repaint our master bedroom.
While we love the periwinkle color I painted our bedroom a number of years ago, I’m ready to switch our room to a softer color. Most likely the same color as in the main areas of the house, so that we can bring color in in the form of curtains and bedding. As with our kiddo’s room, it’s simply time for a change!
3. Scrape and paint the exterior trim.
Six or seven years ago, my hubby and stepson repainted the exterior trim, with a color chosen by me. I can honestly say, now, that it wasn’t the best color choice I’ve ever made — it’s too harsh with the brick color of our house. Instead of asking my hubby to “do over” the trim color, I want to see how much of it I can do myself. Of course, it’ll be during the dog days of a Texas summer, so I won’t be able to work on it for very many hours in a day, but I figure I can slowly and steadily chip away at this particular painting project.
4. (a “maybe” project) Repaint my workspace.
Yes, I am actually saying this aloud ;-). Even though I love the rich blue of my workspace, I’m ready for all rooms in our house to have soft, neutral colors on the walls. For my workspace, I’d love to do a fairly pastel pink on the walls, sort of like in this inspiration photo*:
and keep my white sheers, then add pops of various shades of pinks, reds, and soft shades of blues (rather than green, as in the above inspiration photo). I try not to go too frilly or girly in any of the other rooms, seeing as I share the house with only guys, but I’ve come to accept that I have a love for “frilly-n-girly” in my decor and my workspace is a good place to be unlimited with that!
[*inspiration photo source: found in an archived "dining room inspiration" post on the Cozy Little House blog; not sure of original photo source]
5. (another “maybe” project) Paint the hallway paneling.
This is one of those projects about which we’ve procrastinated the whole time we’ve lived here, and will be one of those projects which, when complete, we’ll be saying we wished we’d done sooner ;-). Our hallway is small with dark paneling, which seems to have been installed when CA/CH was installed. The prep work will be tedious, but getting light-colored paint over the paneling should make a huge difference.
If I can tackle the first two projects during the days my kiddo’s busy out of the house, I can work on the latter three projects at any time over the summer.
And then our only remaining big, indoors project will be revamping our bathroom. Which, in theory, shouldn’t be that much of a hassle . . . but, in reality, could open up a whole can of worms!! Things in this house have been done in very . . . interesting . . . ways by prior owners, particularly plumbing and electrical stuff. I don’t think either of us are ready to begin unearthing stuff like that in the bathroom until next year ;-).
