We're done!

Oh MY GOD!

And I thought the herb garden was bad. We are done and I'm very happy we're done. My body is even more happy as it HURTS. It only took until Wednesday night to finish the patio (I took the day off Tuesday but not Wednesday). We have no stairs, we have to finish trim work (wood trim we've decided, Chris we need your table saw) and there's a few little drainage problems that need tamping, but in the meantime, we are very happy to be DONE. We toasted with gingerale when we finished cleaning up last night at 9:30. Too exhausted to actually drink anything. We even hauled all the broken brick to the back so the yard is clean. YAAAY.

Pictures will follow when I am less exhausted at night. (We've been going to bed at 10 and sleeping straight through til 8) Just how long does it take to get sand out of the house.....?

Sand Glorious Sand

The stoneshooter was here today. We have sand! Now the fun part begins. Check out the sand shooting across the back yard.

Here's the patio before sand.

That's a big truck!!

Half the sand is in at this point, the bushes are weighted down and we are covered in sand dust. It's a good thing we took a bit of time and covered the window with a blue tarp because the sand was shooting straight onto the sliding door. We covered some of the grass with a tarp as well but should have been better prepared as we now have a large sandy area where we used to have grass. It worked much better than a wheelbarrow though. We figured out that it equaled 10,000 pounds of sand, luckily, we only have to shovel it around the patio, not from the back yard where the truck was parked.

Ok time to go shovel.....

Brick Patio Approaching

We have finished painting around the patio. I did the wood, he did the concrete. It only took us about an hour and a half on Sunday. It looks really nice, I can't wait for the brick to be put down.

Wednesday we will get the wood so we can SCREED (a new word for me) the sand right into place after the stoneshooter puts it on the patio on Friday. They will bring 5 tons of sand and shoot it right into our lovely setup. Cross your fingers that the setup is done.

Before we can place the wood we have to remove everything from the patio, this includes the ugly steps which we haven't decided if we will replace or not. I'm not looking forward to cleaning under those stairs, I think there's sheet metal from years ago.

Pictures will follow on Wednesday.

So what's next....

I think there must be something in the air in spring that makes you want to do stuff. Yesterday morning (yes Monday) found me on my hands and knees at 8am scrubbing the hardwood floors. The stairs looked dirty, what can I say. At least it wasn't in high heels this time.

The weather here in Baltimore has just been fantastic. We've had cool nights in the 50's and days around 65-70. It could stay like this all year round as far as I'm concerned.



The herb garden is in and I've even remembered to water it. The fennel and the sorrel are really starting to grow, unless I'm imagining things. I've put some flowers in pots around the patio so it looks nice and best of all the azaelas are in bloom.


When we first moved into the house I was charmed by our little patio, we went out and got the grill and the patio furniture and enjoyed it all summer. The next May I was shocked, amazed and pleased to see how the azaelas bloomed. We have a beautiful compliment of them. I can't take the credit, but at least I get to sit out on my patio and appreciate. :-) That's where the nice glass of white wine and the umbrella comes in handy.

So what next? We're gearing up for Memorial Day weekend when we'll put pavers on the patio. Take a look at what we have and you'll see why we are putting down the brick. The concrete is all corroded and looks really bad. We'll put stone dust down on top of it, tamp it down and then lay the pavers on top and spread sand. It's going to be quite the adventure. At least it's all framed out and we're getting the Stoneshooters to put the stone dust right on the patio.

And here's the brick. I think it's going to look great.

Planting in steps

What do most people do on a Friday night? Well maybe they go out to dinner, maybe they get together with friends, maybe they mulch? I poured myself a glass of wine and proceeded to do just that.


Thursday night Ali and I went to Valley View Farms and bought all the herbs. Verrry exciting. It was hard to stop, good thing I had a list.


Friday I went for more mulch and manure. I shoveled it in and then laid the plastic sheeting on top. Apparently this is supposed to keep the weeds from popping up all over.

After laying the plastic I laid everything out to visualize how it would look. I think it looks GREAT! Here's one from the side.


Planting however was a pain because the plastic was installed. I had to move the bits of plastic out of the way, dig my hole, cut a hole in the plastic, and shove the plant through all without breaking off the stems. (Killed one of my nasturtiums this way, hopefully it will come back. Here's a few more pictures. What do you think?








The finished product. Watch it grow.

Waaay too long.....

Ok so I broke down tonight. It was a beautiful evening and I got home from work early. My sweetie was off somewhere so I decided to surprise him and cut the lawn. I think I can safely say that I have cut it for the last time this year. Yuk! It was a toss up between the gym, which I've been doing a FINE job of avoiding, and cutting the lawn for exercise. I think the lawn was harder.

We have an electric lawnmower which means you have to tug the orange extension cord around behind you. Now if you are smart or not as lazy as I am, you tie the cord from the lawnmower in a knot with the cord from the extension cord, that way, when you step on the cord (every time you back up) you don't unplug the lawnmower.

.

It's a good thing our lawnmower is electric, read light, because there is a lovely hill next to our house and in order to cut it, I have to take a running start and fly up the hill, then, being careful not to trod on that cord, push with all my might while walking backwards so that my feet don't get taken off by the blades coming back down. When the grass is this long it makes it doubly fun as the lawnmower clogs and starts to wheeze and choke and you have to lift it up so the clods fall out.

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When I finished the hill, I had to decide whether to leave the back or cut it as well. Cutting it means taking the lawnmower down the hill around the patio and up the stairs because, of course, the "herb garden" (see below) now blocks off the hill from the back yard. What a pain, I'm glad I don't cut the grass. Having finished, I sat with more peach iced tea admiring my work. Looks good, now if only my nose would stop running.

Bricklaying

So I laid the brick walkway today. Take a look!






Here's one of my lavendar and phlox from the patio. See the blue tarp in the background? Jay's froggie is standing proud after 3 years.