house update

It's been a while since I posted photos of the house. Last summer our big project was renovating the backyard (putting in grass, flowers, and a veggie garden) and turning the squalid shed into a proper garage. Then the house next door put up a new fence. This summer we're reaping the benefits of that hard work. We still have a ways to go but it's a big improvement over what was there.

Here's the garage.




Here are some shots of our veggie garden. In the back here are our tomato plants (full of lots of green tomatoes), some canteloupe, and our lettuce is up front. We let it go to seed in the hopes it will spring up again in the fall.


In this photo (left to right) are butternut squash, eggplant, zuchini, onions (not visible), broccoli, and yellow squash.


For anyone who's visited us here, you may remember the neighbor next door (nice guy) had a house with much room for improvement. Plus a pack of loud barking dogs. Well he sold to a developer who came in and renovated the place and put up a new privacy fence. Voila! Our house looks better just by sitting next to theirs!





And now the shoe is on the other foot. Now WE'RE the neighbor with the crappy yard in need of improvement. So this summer we've gotten started. It's a big job. We had to level the yard and haul of 12 cubic yards of dirt. That's a lot! When we did the back we did all the work of leveling and removing dirt ourselves with shovels, wheel barrows and one hired hand. It took us FOREVER! This time we enlisted some serious help.

It still took a 2-man crew with a bobcat a full day to get the job done! And they hauled off load after load of dirt. What we paid them was less than what we paid for equipment rental and dump fees in the back. And it was a heckuva lot easier for us!



We dug the front down enough to put down landscape barrier and mulch without having to worry about the fabric showing through the mulch or the mulch straying out of its designated spots. On Saturday we had 12 yards of mulch delivered. That's a lot! 2 yards were for Jen and Micah though.



We're going to have sort of a modern look in the front. The square of dirt you see below will have grass and a fruit tree in it. There will be plants in the mulch. Eventually.



Roan had a good ol' time watching and helping. There she is sitting on the steps watching Daddy rake the mulch. She insisted on getting her rake and "helping," which primarily consisted of her sitting in the dirt near a pile of mulch shouting, "No! Me do it! Me rake the mulch!"



Here's what the house looks like for the time being. The mountain of mulch that was delivered has become a smaller mound. The weeds and overgrowth are gone, but it's a rather stark place with nothing but flat mulch. Nonetheless I'm excited. I can picture it with all the new trees and plants we're going to have!

There will be two fruit trees. One on the right, one on the left in the grass. Also a common liliac (they get 10x10) and a forsythia (stunning yellow blooms early in spring). Around the house we'll do some grasses arranged symetrically and then a variety of other xeriscape plants filling in the rest of the mulched spots.


Coming soon - updates from our trip to Miami.