Landscape Project Phase 5 of 10 is now complete!

We've come a long way in the the last two years. Whereas, once you only saw the side of the house when you got to the driveway, this is what you see now: a lot of gorgeous forest surrounding our humble home.

When we bought the house it had absolutely no landscaping, just grass and weeds.

Now we have just enough landscaping to make it feel like home. Everything looks small right now but in time everything will fill out

Whereas once there was no sidewalk or even front porch stairs, now it's very clear where the front door is and how to get there.

I think we finally have solved the issues with the house that made it unsellable and we are looking forward to enjoying it for many years to come!

A Few Ticks and an Aching Back Later... the Monday Garden Club (a little early)

For a little background on our site improvement projects you can check out these posts here, here, here, and here.

Nick using the loader.

We poured our hearts out this weekend getting our yard screened in and things are really starting to take shape. I ordered 12 large pine trees last week from a local wholesale nursery and had them delivered on Friday to fill in the wide swath of forest the previous owner had unnecessarily taken out. These trees will help screen our reforesting project (nicknamed by a neighbor as little Arlington Cemetery) from our neighbors. While it only took us an hour to get all the material off of the delivery truck (which I'm very proud of considering our little crew of 3 including myself), it took us two entire days to get our 6'-8' tall pines fully planted in the ground. My MIL had the task of watching the kiddos all weekend while Nick and I experienced a few days in the lives of day laborers.

View of the pines from the yard.

View of the pines from the road.
(I apologize all the photos were taken at the end of day and are very shadowy.)

We recruited our neighbor and his tractor (with fork attachments) to get the trees off the truck and in the ground. Our neighbor has back issues so Nick and I were on our own to get the holes dug out and filled back in. Nick dug out the holes with our rented back hoe but we both had to hand shovel it back in with a mix of existing soil and amendments. It was a nasty task. My back is still aching.

For the most part we were able to be gentle, however, one poor tree was not so lucky and its guts spilled out when one of the fork attachments slipped and the tree fell through. I was absolutely devastated. I was checking it out today and it didn't look too happy. I do not expect it to survive the ordeal but am hopeful it will. I'm a bit of a nervous wreck about all of them. Though they weren't expensive, they did cost a bit of overhead in rental equipment and sweat equity.

Sunday, with the enormous task of the evergreen trees behind us, we worked on putting in the minimal landscaping around the house. I purchased only a modest amount of materials for the front understanding that we will slowly fill it in with time and as our budget allows. We will install these plants through next week.

I tried to stay native when possible, using Mountain Laurel, Eastern Redbud, Allegheny Serviceberry, Bearberry and Azaleas, etc. Some plants, however, I chose simply because they make me happy. I love lily of the valley (muget) because it reminds me of my time in Paris. I chose to use some Russian Sage because it reminds me a very special time in our lives (when we started our family in Albuquerque). Your landscaping should make you feel happy.

Hopefully we will get everything installed this week.

A lot is happening in the veggie garden.


The beans have sprouted.


We had our first arugula salad! YUM!


The broccoli is getting HUGE!!


That's all I can muster right now! I'm going to go take a hot shower and freshen up so I can get dirty all over again tomorrow. Happy Gardening!

Must be Played to be Enjoyed

Our driveway is complete and, in the end, the excavators did a good job. Enjoy this little montage to commemorate the momentous driveway realignment project's completion.

Tip: Make sure your sound is ON.

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More Progress Pics

The excavator showed up today. I suppose some progress is still progress but he was only able to spend an hour on the project. In that hour he already broke the boundaries I had set for him (i.e. the bright orange survey marking tape I laid out marking the limit of construction) which I wasn't terribly pleased about. It reminds me of the days I was working with the county yelling at construction crews for putting equipment on top of tree roots. Oh, the horror!

I can't tell you how much I had emphasized (over and over with this guy) how important it was to work within the area I demarcated so that tree roots weren't damaged, so I was really annoyed and disappointed. While minor (not a huge impact area), I'm going to have to watch this guy closely to make sure he really doesn't do something terrible. Unfortunately, I'm not completely focused. When you've got two little ones to watch at the same time, I just can't hop up and leave to consult the excavator. This is essentially design-build project (i.e. no drawings), so communication is key. He promised to be back on Monday to finish the job in its entirety. I'll keep you guys updated and I'm determined to get this done the way I envision it!

Our cabinet maker finished the entertainment unit and the library/office today. We can't move in the TV though until the finishing touches of paint have dried. Now it's our job to paint the office (I'm thinking a light grass green would work well), and organize all our junk into bins and stow it in the cabinets. We also need to drudge all the books we currently have stored in our garage and get them out on the shelves.

I would say we'd get it done this weekend but I have big plans. I'm planning to spend some time with my niece. I don't get to spend a lot of time with her so this is extra special. Instead of painting and organizing, I'll be shopping and lunching. I guess the work will have to wait!

Glorious Fall Days

On our way back from church (we have yet to settle on a church and have been shopping for a while now) we took the long route home to enjoy some of the foliage. It is insanely gorgeous right now. It's too bad this season doesn't just stretch out a little bit longer.

When we got home, we put the kids to bed and decided to enjoy the fall air with a little more yard work. We finished staking out the proposed driveway as I mentioned yesterday. Below is a picture of the results.

The orange flags are where the center line of the drive will be and the orange tape is to demarcate the limits of work.

GARDEN UPDATE:
It's been in the lower 70's to upper 60's of late and we have yet to get a killing freeze. This coming week is supposed to continue to be mild so I uncovered the plants so they could enjoy the warmth. I'm still crossing my fingers the cauliflower will hold out and we can squeeze a harvest.

Mache is on the left and cauliflower to your right.

Have we reached redneck status yet?

Today we accomplished a significant amount of yard work in order to make way for our new realigned driveway. I've had the project priced out by several excavators and found a decent price with one recommended by a neighbor. The excavators were supposed to come two weeks ago but they were delayed with the rain. It ended up being a good thing as we weren't quite finished with the work required on our end. They should be here this week so we really had to get moving this weekend.

Nick finished off burning a large brush pile left by the previous owner this morning. The previous owner had placed a large pile smack dab in the middle of the forest, i.e. right where we are putting the proposed driveway. We will have to replace it with one somewhere else on the property because they are good for wildlife habitat.

Admittedly, the pile above looks lame as it had already burned down to embers when I took the picture.

After Nick finished that, he worked on cutting down a big ole dead pine tree that could pose a problem to our proposed driveway later. He cut it down with his birthday present (a 16" Chain Saw) and it still didn't budge. So then he beat at it with a sledge hammer (we didn't have an axe.) As you'll note in the video, it simply plopped down but didn't fall. Note: If you play the video below, I may have a bit of a potty mouth (the S word) with this one so don't play this when the kids are around. My apologies! No kids were around during the first several phases of work.



Nick had to tug it with a tow rope to get the thing down. It finally fell. Below is a video of the tow job.



Nick cut down some lesser dead trees as well. The video below has some good chainsaw action.



Tomorrow, I need to get out there and mark the limits of work with stakes and survey tape so there is little room for miscommunication between myself and the excavators. My hope is to minimize impact to the existing trees as much as possible.

Camping and Cutie Pies

GreenEyes will be turning one in a week. We had planned a small party/camp out for him but it turned out being a bad weekend for everyone so we will be celebrating it ourselves next weekend. GreenEyes is at a great age. He has met some interesting benchmarks. First, we have gotten rid of the bottles and he's officially using sippy cups.

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He's also started saying "mama." I'd say this is first intentional word. :) He's technically been saying "dada" but it the same way he's been saying baba or gaga... i.e. jibber jabber. This one, he's been doing with some prompting. Ladybug's first intentional word was dog. Check out the video below.

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Nick's been working really hard the past couple weekends getting a trail in and small campfire area going in anticipation of our party. Below is a pic of the trail he cleared. We are going to get a trial fire going when we finish it this weekend.


Nick and GreenEyes on the cleared trail.


The family hanging out at the campfire site. Nick isn't quite finished with laying all the stones. We are also going to be adding logs to sit on. We have a good bit of left over logs from trees the previous owners took down.

Below is a pic of the stumps. We will take another pic when it's all completed and put together. I'm looking forward to the smores already!

Site Improvements

One of the issues we need to work on with our house is curb appeal. Unfortunately, the previous owners didn't layout the driveway to take advantage of the site's natural attributes. They sited the driveway in the least aesthetically pleasing location. In fact as you approach the property all you see is the utilitarian side of the house where our garage and shed are located. There is a door and stoop on that side of the house to further confuse folks into believing that the side door might actually be the front door. As you drive in, you are never able to appreciate the front of the house. This problem is probably why we got such a great deal on the house. Most people can't see beyond that.

Luckily, we have some vision. I figured that we could do some relatively simple things to resolve the awkward site arrangement. I think the first thing we need to do is close the unnecessarily large swath created by the home's construction. Clearly, little was done during construction to protect the trees. The result is an unnecessarily large swath of open lawn that is not in keeping with the character of the rest of lot. I'd like to see this area become forest again. Lawn is not very eco friendly in that it provides very little habitat for native species, little air filtering effects, etc. It is also a pain in the arse to keep mowed.

Nick has been taking a course at the cooperative extension office on how to make this happen. While I'm a landscape architect, that doesn't mean I can't take a point or two from area foresters. Our current plan is to annihilate the grass. Then, we will plant some modest evergreens for instant effect as well as hardwood seedlings. We will allow the area to fill in as natural meadow. Eventually, nature will take its course and it will become a transitional forest. For a time, it may look "un-kept", but the goal is worthwhile. By enclosing the open swath, it will give the house an enveloped feeling on all sides and buffer any undesirable views to the utilitarian side of the house. I think our neighbors will appreciate the long term effects.

For the short term, however, we will need to make the neighbors aware that there may be a number of years where the area is meadow until the canopy is able to fill in and get them on board. If you have read our previous post about our neighbors, we are well aware that they don't like the look of natural meadow. If this poses to be a huge problem, we may have to mow until the canopy fills in.


In the meantime, we will relocate the driveway so that it meanders through a forested area that was previously disturbed. We won't have to remove any trees and we will do only minimal regrading (i.e. to fill in small divots and place a culvert, etc.) This will allow the front of the house to be seen first resolving any confusion as to the entrance of the house.

Below is a sketch of the proposed changes. Please excuse the rough nature of the sketch. It was quick and dirty and my scanner isn't working right now so I had to take a photo of it. So, excuse me on that!