Patio Fence Update

The fence is holding strong. The patio is still a goose free zone. It is great to be able to walk out side and not have to watch your every step to get to the car. 

Last week Gus realized that he could jump over it. I, on the other hand, have almost biffed it a few times. We are definitely going to need a permanent solution with a gate. I'm thinking a white picket fence. Maybe next year. 

Moth

When I was picking berries on Sunday this guy was resting on the shed. If you know what kind of moth it is let me know, I'd be interested to hear.

The first photograph doesn't show the massiveness of this guy. Lets do a size comparison.

That's a big moth.

Patio

Remember when I told you how we 'deconstructed' our porch garden in preparation for a patio. Well it was finally dry enough for the concrete guy to do his thing.

We started with this.

Well after we moved all my flowers and the rocks and let the weeds take over.

Then this was dumped in our driveway.

Thanks Gus for helping me show the scale of the pile-o-gravel.

Then our guy came and moved some of the dirt and gravel. He framed it up and compacted. I insisted on leaving that shrub. It gets beautiful pink flowers and the humming birds love it. I also needed to have rounded corners. No square slab of concrete for me.No way Jose.

The following day he drilled the re-bar into our porch and laid the rest of it. Unfortunately, this step is not pictured. Once again I was distracted by the cuteness of geese.

Now we have this.

I'm off to start scheming and drawing up plans for Mr B. to build me a brick counter and grill.

Down Goes the Mountain

The mountain of dirt is almost gone. We have raised beds along our goose run and a huge flower bed in our front yard. We also removed a garden dug into the hill and filled it in, it looked like crap, got very little sun, and was so far away from the house that I never weeded it. 

Mr B has assured me that by the time I get home from work tomorrow the last cart loads of dirt will be gone and the garden tilled and ready for our veggies to be planted. 

Raised Beds and a Mountain of Dirt

While we were playing lumberjacks on Saturday I had a load of dirt delivered. Mr. B told me to get five yards of dirt. So I ordered five yards, the guy said he would bring a truck load, it would be between five and six yards.

It's a mountain of dirt!

Don't worry we had big plans for this mountain. And I have a few back ups in case we still have extra dirt.

One of the main plans was constructing a raised bed along the sides of the goose run. We can't expand our vegetable garden any further in the area we have it with out cutting down a tree. So I thought we could plant some things in different areas of the yard. Who says they all need to be in the same plot o' mud.

Mr. B framed these up for me, based on my rough description on hand motions. He's getting really good at deciphering what I want.

Then we filled it with a layer of leaf compost.  We dumped most of our leaves at the edge of the woods past two falls. This spring we dug down through the top layer to get at the good stuff underneath. It will continue to break down and feed the plants in the garden.

Last year I kept asking Mr. B to help me build some compost bins, it would be nice to have and most of my flower beds could benefit from some good food. He kept telling me no. Well while we were working on this endeavor he agreed that something to contain the leaves/compost would be easier. We will be building some simple three sided corral for composting soon.

After the compost came the dirt. Several garden carts full. Praise the Lord we didn't have to wheelbarrow it. It's been enough work just shoveling it. We also moved some to the front flower bed. I'm hoping to show you that in a few days when its not just a pile of dirt, but has some plants in it.

Now all we need is the plants. I'm thinking asparagus on one side, as it comes back every year. And the cucumbers and zucchinis on the other, as they take up a bit of garden space and are lower maintenance compared to the tomatoes.

Oh and we will need a fence around it. We have to sassy boys who want to eat everything they are not supposed to. Bruce, Christmas, I'm talking about you.

As for the mountain of dirt I would say we still have about 1/2 to 1/3 of it left. I guess we might have to implement the back up plans. Oh darn.

Playing at Lumberjacks

On Saturday some helpers came to cut down some trees with us. I decided that we needed to cut down some scraggly pines that were by our raspberry patch. They were blocking out most of the sun and the berries were doing poorly. I also have a scheme to add some blue berries and black berries to the patch and eventually put a picket fence around it. Surprisingly Mr. B was completely on board. Well at least with the cutting down trees part. We shall see how many years it takes to get my fence. 

As usual no before pictures because I'm an airhead. And no during pictures because I was busy manning the ATV dragging branches to the burn pit while the boys were busy wielding chain saws. Here's what it looks like now. 

Still some clean up to do.

Even after a few days the berries are doing much better, at least to me they seem like it. And although they dropped one of the trees on them they did bounce back nicely. 

The irises that were in that area, not so much. They got trampled. Oh well, there root system still looks good and next year they will be just fine. I'm planing on transplanting them any way this week. 

Now we just need to find an day with little wind. I think we have a bit of burning to do. 

You bring the marshmallows and we'll have smores. you'll need to find a long poker-stick. I have a feeling this is going to be a big fire.  

Deconstruction

The past two days we have been working on deconstructing one of our flower beds. It sits off the back porch. Once again no before pictures because I'm an airhead.

 Early in the spring it looks nice, then it rains and the dog tracks the mud into the house. Then it progresses to the summer and the weeds start to take over and Gus decides that it would be a good spot to wrestle with his friends and the day lilies make the perfect place for an afternoon nap.

It had to go. 

We contacted the concrete guy last fall and have a plan in place to have a patio poured. But first I wanted to move the plants, and the rocks that made the border. 

The plants have been moved to a garden on the side of the house. Well it used to be two gardens, but this weekend we connected them and tore out the bushes in one of them. We tilled and then moved the plants. 

The rocks were moved to the front yard to make a boarder for a new flower bed. 

More on that to come. 

Mrs. AJ

Last year there was a pair of Red Tails nesting in the big pine in the front yard. They are back again this year. We refer to them and Mr. and Mrs. AJ. My MIL started calling hawks AJ and it kinda stuck. Get it AJ Hawk from the Green Bay Packers. Yeah I know…

Bruce and Christmas are too big of fatties for the hawks to bother with. Now the in-laws purse dog Ninny, well he’s a different story.  

Blizzard Draco

Did you know they started giving names to blizzards? A few days ago we experienced the wrath of Draco. It wasn't fun, but the acres does look beautiful with a fresh layer of snow. 

We got over 14 inches of snow on Wednesday night into Thursday afternoon. It blanked everything. 

The snow was heavy and wet which was not nice for the We have some saggy pines and one of the oaks lost a limb. 

But it was the perfect snowman making snow. Instead of plowing out the drive on Thursday morning, we built a snow man. Our little ATV and plow wasn't making a dent. We decided to wait for the carvery and his John Deere. You can see Frosty in the bottom left of the picture. He is as tall as me. He still needs arms and a face though.

Thursday night it started to blow and drift. Our yard is very ascetically pleasing in the spring and summer. In the winter there is a wind tunnel effect by the drive way. It drifts, bad. I couldn't get out of the driveway Friday morning. They were up to the hood of the Jeep. 

  

Once again we had to wait for the carvery.  We have to have some of the nicest neighbors ever; I don't know what we would do with out them! Unfortunately since the ground was not frozen yet the blade on the tractor did a number on my yard. See that hunk of brown in the snow bank, yeah that's dirt and sod. 

That's just one pile. There are more all over the drive. Spring is going to be a lot of work next year. But I'll worry about it in a few months. For now we will enjoy the snow and a white Christmas. 

First Snow Fall

It was snowing out this morning when I woke up. The first real snow of the season. None of the gaggle has experienced snow yet.

When I let them out this morning they weren't so sure.  

It took them a few minutes to decided it was OK to go out, and the white stuff was fine to walk on. 

Geese are a resilient bird and can handle the cold just fine. Don't worry we won't have to buy them snow boots. 

Unfortunately their kiddie pool freezes and we cannot get a heater, the gaggle is extremely inquisitive and have already destroyed at least one power chord. So during the winter they have to make do with smaller buckets.

The smaller buckets do make for an interesting bath time when they argue over who's turn it is. 

An Undisclosed Location

This picture appeared on Face book yesterday. It is Mr. B's brother and a bonfire he built. He is 6'7", so that fire is probably over 13 feet tall.

We did take that family vacation a month ago and I vaguely remember Mr. B saying some thing about his brother stopping by to burn some stuff.

He says he cannot confirm or deny his location at the time of the photo, but it suspiciously resembles my back yard.

Clean Up

Two nights ago we had a storm pass through. Nothing world ending, no major damage. Standing on the porch watching the front move in, feeling the temp drop, and hearing the wind pick up was rather eerie. Not that I'm afraid of storms, I'm just not particularly fond of them. 

We haven't had a good storm in quite a while with that heavy of winds. We have a trees. We have allot of trees, BIG trees. We don't call it Shady Acres for nothing. 

The day after the storm cleared we had a bit of pick up to do. No trees fell, but lots of branches. Here is the pile we collected. We shall have a nice fire soon. 

The birds weathered out the storm in the coop. 

No worse for the wear. 

Gus hung out in the house with Mr. B and I. I'm glad he isn't afraid of storms. He's my nice brave boy.