Lady Liberty on a drizzly summer day

I spent the weekend with Jade, in New York. On Friday afternoon, we took the Staten Island ferry, across the water and past the Statue of Liberty. It's free!

The weather was warm, misty, drizzly...

Thrift store finds: refinished!

Refinished: sanded, smoothed and given several coats of satin. Fixed the broken bits. Added new knobs (or as they call them here, new "pulls").

Love the wood grain. Really glad I didn't use the ebony stain on this one.

The knobs are from India, found at World Market. They cost more than the chest of drawers itself, but still less than plastic-fake-metal ones from the big home improvement stores. They are ceramic!

Shoe-bench-deck-seat

I was looking for an Asian-style shoe-bench to put on the deck between the master bedroom and the little bathroom, but everything new I saw was too expensive, to flimsy, and just not right. Then I found this coffee table in the thrift store... made in Indonesia, sturdy enough to sit on. And the bench pads were half-price at World Market this weekend.

So now there is no excuse for wearing shoes indoors.

More plantings. Hoping they'll survive 100 degrees C.

Pumpkins around the edge of the cutting garden--the gnarly, warty kind. Canteloupe plants potted-up into the big, red Dollar Store buckets (with drainage holes added). Four hangiing baskets--two the usual kind, and two spray-painted thrift-store bird cages--planted with nasturtiums and trailing lobelia. And a load of the baby echinacea, shasta daisies, foxgloves and red-hot pokers are now in the front garden. First perennials here from seed!

The four hydrangeas I put on the shady side of the house are now being blasted by early-morning sun, and today, a drying wind. And I suspect that the turkeys are starting to sample the baby tomatoes. This calls for a trip to Home Depot for some shade cloth and/or turkeyproof net.

Found wild cherries along the creek! The fat squirrel gave them away by sitting in full sight stuffing his face! Now we know where they are... and they are yellow-orange and delicious.

Thrift store finds--progress on chest of drawers (or "dresser", if you prefer)

All sanded back to bare wood--lovely knotty pine. When I bought it, I thought I'd stain it ebony to match the one I have in my office... but after seeing the clean wood, I just want to leave it natural with a satin finish. And black drawer pulls.

It didn't take long at all: the old finish was shallow and had not deeply penetrated the wood.

Thrift store finds--before

Found these at my favourite, giant thrift store at the weekend.

A lamp base in filigree metal: pattern is very similar to a couple of other things that I have already.

An incredibly-comfortable wooden chair. Reminded me of something in my grandad Toon's kitchen. Cost 10$.

And a brown-stained pine chest-of-drawers for $35. I forgot to take a picture of it before I dismantled it, but these are the drawers:

All of the handles were broken or missing. The framework to hold the front of a couple of the drawers has come loose and will need fixing.

Hummingbird!

He loves the black-and-blue salvia.

Japanese garden: tiny steps

Hostas are emerging: these were tiny roots a couple of weeks ago. They are supposed to be almost white, but they are coming up green. I have no complaints.




Rocks gathered from around the property which I'll use in the Japanese garden. No it wasn't me who picked them up and carried them. That was a punishment.

Sunshine at last

Was at at last able to do some planting again last night. It has been cool, and very rainy, seems like for weeks... and now summer has arrived. Just like that.

One of the "grab bags" of plants included what I thought were three "hedge" roses. When I opened the bag yesterday, I found not three, but three bundles of three. So now the new cutting garden has a hedge of nine roses. They are but small, sprouting sticks right now. I must remember to keep them well-watered as the temperatures start to soar.



Cosmos growing...



... so are the tomatoes (these are yellow grape heirloom, yummy!)...


Lettuce and radish and carrot seedlings. One row of lettuce has not appeared--maybe the seeds were too old.




Peas. They may not produce much: planted too late, and the summer will be too hot, very soon.


And a courgette/zuchinni plant on the compost heap. Which is covered in plastic to help conserve water.

Paint. Chosen. Applied.

It's called "Lemongrass" from Behr. It's a very startling bright green when in the paint-pot, but dries to a (slightly) more subtle, new-leaf-new-grass green.

It's one one wall only: the rest of the room is Lunar Light.

Rainy weekends mean that more painting has been done. Dylan finished the painting in the living room for me. So now we have about half the house painted... still a lot to do. And I really must get around to putting in skirting/baseboards.

Blogger has lost it. Again.

Random, old postings--like the one just below, I only want to be in the garden--which disappeared several weeks ago, have reappeared (three versions of one!). New postings from cell phone are not arriving, but no error message to say that they don't work. And it won't let me post a comment on my own blog...

I just want to be in the garden

That's it. Nowhere else.
I have almost half-an-acre to play with, and this time it's all garden-able, one way or another. It's starting to show me what it wants to be... there's a Japanese garden, the vegetable patch, the mini-orchard (that part's already there), the rock garden, the meadow.... I can see it but you may just see weeds.

Just come back in a couple of years. OK?

Daylilies and sweet peas

A few weeks ago, I wrote that "all the daylily seeds" had sprouted. Wrong. Somehow I had two identical Ziploc bags with an identical amount of identically black, round and large (for seeds) seeds. The first bagful of seeds that was found in the packing-boxes, and planted, produced sweet peas. Then I found the second bag. And now there is, indeed, a baby daylily. And possibly one or two others beginning to hatch.

No flowers on the sweet peas yet though and it may soon be too warm for them here. I think I need to plant them in November.

Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe...

The shelves are fully-assembled and fixed to the wall and, for the price, I'm very happy with the results. Went with IKEA "Billy" and I know they won't last forever, but they will be treated gently and they fit my budget, which the 10K$ custom build didn't.

The most difficult part was making the shelves, and especially the corner, "fit" while understanding that the walls and floors are not perfectly straight/flat/vertical. Had to put some strips of extra carpet under a couple of the bookcases. Some customisation of the corner hardware was needed!

Still needed: a new cover for the heating vent, some floor cushions, and a good reading lamp. Oh. And I have room for more books!

... and then the turkey vulture

Just a few hours after seeing the first turkey chicks, a turkey vulture flapped its way out of the trees near the creek, skimming over the house. Huge wings, red headed, clumsy. Never seen one of those so close before.

I wonder about the life expectancy of baby turkeys.

Baby turkeys have arrived!

I saw the first two this morning--following their mother through the mulch in the border at the front of the house. One was confused and ran the wrong way, away from Mum, and she called it back. Then they all strutted off towards the back of the house.

Vegetable boxes

Nowhere near finished but these are filled and seeds planted. Lettuce, carrots and beetroot in the big one; peas, mange-touts, and green beans, cucumber and edamame in the others. (Yes edamame. I found baby edamame plants at the bargain grocery store.)

Made the boxes a couple of weekends ago, from parts of the demolished entertainment center (see earlier, March 3rd). They will not last forever: it's not wood that's meant to be outdoors. But for this summer, they'll do the job, and anyway one day the vegetable garden will be over the other side of the property, between the orchard and the creek, in the sunniest spot. But for now, these will work fine.

Still have to put the mulch down to be the paths around them.

Pool border--after

It hasn't stopped raining and it isn't sunny again yet, but here it is: daylilies, salvia, a jasmine, and more. The picture has been carefully taken so that you can't see the rest of the border, because that bit's not done yet.

Didn't cut the privet trees down completely, just limbed them up for now. But they really have to come out.

Orchard!

Left-to-right: blackberry, against the tree-stump, lemon sapling, lime sapling, mature sweet navel orange against the railings on the left, mature sour (still) orange against the railings on the right, squirrel-bluejay-turkey-raided cherry in front of the sour orange (and it drastically needs a haircut), pomegranate, small but Giant Babcock White peach.

Easy digging, because we've had rain since Friday, and the earth is soft but not soggy.

Lemon is "Improved Meyer" which, now I read the label, is in fact not a lemon. ???  It is a dwarf citrus tree that is a hybrid cross of lemon, orange and mandarin. Well now I just have to go out and find a real lemon too!

Pomegranate is "Wonderful" and must be carefully pruned each year, during winter, after New Year, when fully dormant. First pruning: cut back to two or three scaffold branches, evenly spaced. Second pruning: cut to two, 24" laterals on each scaffold branch. This is supposed to help develop the strong straight trunk to support the heavy fruit. Picture on label looks a little like an ice crystal growing.

Lime is "Bearss Seedless" and is really a lime, dwarf. Grafted rootstock so suckers must be removed. Otherwise, not much pruning needed. Same with the lemon/orange/mandarin masquerading as a lemon.

Peach is "Giant Babcock White" which apparently needs 450 hours of below-45 degree temperature. I wonder how that will work out. I suppose that is only 18 days, and this year, no problem with that. Should be pruned in same way as the pomegranate, but starting with three or four scaffold branches.

Blackberry is blackberry and I truly didn't know until now that they only fruit on second-year growth--and that, once fruited, a cane never fruits again. Maybe that's because I've never planted one before, just picked them in the wild from giant, overgrown, roadside tangles.

The garden is an adventure, a discovery. The older fruit tree that overhangs the horse-next-door's shelter has small, hard, dark-green fruit on it now. I found two on the floor: they have the curvacious form of plums or peaches. I'm thinking plum, but it will be fun finding out for sure.

Clothes or trees? Trees won.

I really did intend to go and buy some new cargo pants. And honestly, I searched Ross and Kohls, and even tried a couple of things on, but they didn't fit, were wrong style, and wrong colour (why is it impossible to buy women's cargo pants any more unless they are for stick legs and/or end at the shin)?

And... just happened the these shops were on the same street as the supermarket where I'd noticed the baby fruit trees a few days ago.

So instead of something to wear, I came home with one each of baby lemon, lime, peach and pomegranate trees.

At least I won't ruin the new pants working in the garden tonight.