Day 145 - May 29th

While I was out working in the yard, I opened Alexanders snake bins - he's using two Costco soap containers. I expected to find the two snakes I posted a picture of a short while ago. Instead, each held a large, writhing mass of an unknown number of snakes. Indiana Jones would've screamed like a young girl at a Hannah Montana concert. No way was he going to be able to catch enough food for that many snakes, so I told him he had to go release all but two of them. He wanted to sell them to neighbors, but I don't see that as a viable option at this time :)


While there, Maranda snapped this nice picture of Lydia and Peter as well.

Day 144 - May 28th

On Wednesday night, I bought the plants I needed for the pots surrounding the head fountains. This picture I took Thursday morning of those plants.

Day 143 - May 27th

For several days, I was getting up as early as possible to get the final materials for the fountain area. And each night before, I had been closing at the night job, so I was only getting about 5 hours of sleep a night. This day, Wednesday, I was at Home Depot at sunrise and took this picture with my iPhone.

Day 142 - May 26th

Sophia in front of my terra cotta warrior. He's destined for the area near the blueberry bushes.

Day 141 - May 25th

Jill took this picture of me as I was putting together the central fountain today. It was all in all a lot of work! I wanted to plant the back plantings and get everything level. And yes, I know that the "me" in this is just my leg. My sunburnt leg. I have a pretty strong pattern of my sandal's tanned into my feet already.

Before I get to more stuff we did today, I want to say - we went and saw Star Trek last night. WOW. Fantastic movie! My sister, who is not an ST fan, loved it. The semi-retired nurse down the street loved it. Everyone was loving it, so we decided to go see it as part of our anniversary celebration (we haven't been to a movie in the theater since 300!). I am so happy we saw this on the big screen. Totally worth it!

Here's a picture of the first fountain after I (almost) finished it. I changed plans in the middle and didn't want to go back to the hardware store, so he'll actually be about 2" higher after I buy more supplies.

Here's a front view of the center fountain. You can see the big crack in the front of the fountain :( I still may rotate the whole thing so that's in the back after I seal it sometime in the next day or two. I have to attach the penguins to their rock bases - otherwise the wind will knock them over. I ran out of stones before I could finish the third fountain today. I'm tired but very satisfied. I planted three clematis and four flowering grasses in the back. I hope they all survive - it would be a pain to replace them!

We've been looking forward to this fountain area for so long. I just need 9 more wall blocks, 12 more paver blocks, three lights, one short extension cord, two 36" flexible tubing, two fountain sprayers, several small pots with plants, two block toppers, one medium pot with plant, a little bit of steel cutting and I'm done! Hardly anything left on this project. YAY!

Day 140 - May 24th

Today I had the whole day off! Since my original Memorial Day weekend project was postponed, I decided to do #3 of the gravel consumers - the fountain area! Here is Alexander helping me with the drainage pipe. Our neighbor to the north has a higher property than ours, so whenever she waters heavily, it kind of floods parts of our yard. So I put in 20 feet of drainage pipe.

Here's how the site looked this morning.

First thing I did, after spending an hour and a half shopping at Lowe's, was the drain above. Then the repair of the electrical outlet. It had been damaged beyond repair by some child at some point last year. I snipped the old one off and wired in a new outlet to plug the multi-outlet timer into. Then with Maranda and Alexander's help, hung the trellis behind that will support the Clematis. Then built the east retaining wall.

Then I began mocking out the placement of the three fountains. I had found these bowls at Lowe's that fit perfectly in the holes in the tops of the Easter Island guys heads. It looks a little odd, but it'll work. We found a large crack in our main fountain - it was damaged while in storage over the winter :( I'll caulk it and fix it up tomorrow morning. After a couple of mock ups and getting Jill's opinion, we settled on this arrangement. I love my little penguins :)


Then I stripped all the sod off the area and now in about an hour, Jill and I are going out to a dinner and a movie to celebrate our anniversary :) Tomorrow I should make huge progress on finishing up the fountain area. I need a few more supplies, but we are getting close to finishing project #3 of the season!

Oh, I should relate a funny story. Peter (our 3-1/2 year old) came up and we had this conversation:
Peter: "Are you building the fountain?"
Daddy: "Yes, I am."
Peter: "Can we pee in it?"
Daddy: ".....uh, no you cannot pee in the fountain."
Peter: "Then what is it for?"

Day 139 - May 23rd

Today the kids got to play in the sprinkler for the first time! Yay! There was much loudness.

This was an unusual Saturday in that I worked the evening shift - starting around 3pm. So I had the entire morning off! My next major project was the sheds. They are going on the skinny south side of the house. The original plan, the one I've been going off of for four years, called for two sheds, 7 feet by 3 feet each. One would be for the yard/garden and the other for the kids bikes. I've had the plans picked out for a while. Here's how the site looked Friday at lunch:

By Saturday early, the pallets were chopped up for the firepit, the rest cleaned up and during the day, I carted around 13 loads of gravel to the site. Meanwhile I studied the plans I loved so much. I was really looking forward to building them! Of course, I had to modify the plans a bit, because the one I linked above is a different size. By the time I left for work, the site looked like this:


I then had to make a painful decision. The more I studied the plans, the less likely they were to happen. I ALWAYS wanted wood sheds - they stand up to kid abuse so much better. We had a metal Arrow shed at the old house and any nick in it could eventually turn to rust. And they just don't make wood sheds the size I need.

BUT...it had to be waterproof. And for that, it needed to be built in the round. Which meant building each one in the yard, renting two industrial pallet jacks and several spare sheets of plywood and moving them carefully into place. The more I thought about it, the less practical it was to pursue my beloved course of action.

So I made a painful, painful decision. I abandoned my four year old dream of building my own sheds...at least for now. Home Depot had an Arrow shed on sale this weekend that was close - it's 8' x 3', so they'll stick out from the house a bit. I ordered two and they should be here next week. HOWEVER, they are not for bicycles. We've had to come up with a more creative solution for them.

Day 138 - May 22nd

I was wondering if today's picture should be of the jewelry I gave Jill in celebration of our 19th wedding anniversary today. But I decided on this picture instead. Why? Because Lydia took it. She's been pretty ill all week - strep throat plus an ear infection and finally felt good enough today to get out and about. So she went picture taking - mostly of birds, but some of the strawberry plants and their little baby strawberries.

Happy Anniversary, my love. It just gets better and better every year :)

Day 137 - May 21st

Alexander and the snakes he caught down at the pond. He caught a third, but he let that one go in our garden. He's got a male and a female, so he wants baby snakes.

Day 136 - May 20th

Self portrait sitting on the steps I finished today :) YAY! Project #2 of the season is done. You can't tell because they are nearly invisible, but I'm wearing my brand new glasses I only picked up about 3 hours ago.

And to my brother and his wife: Happy Anniversary!