Chimney capping complete

Partially thanks to our former uninvited house guest, we became aware that we needed some semi-serious chimney work. In short, we needed a new liner, new mortar on the top, some height adjustments on the three holes, and a couple of new caps.

After a few weeks, I managed to get our chimney guys to come out and do the work. On a 100+ degree Friday. I originally thought they would do just the indoor work (cutting a big hole in our wall and chimney to create a drip pan) and install part of the new liner. But I guess they were on a roll, so they proceeded to do the mortar and height adjustments along with installing the liner. I spent the day trying to do work and feeding the workers ice and water.

After day 1, our house had the following changes:

1. Shiny new pipe:

2. Tarp on our chimney (mortar is stronger when it cures at a slower pace):

3. Finally, a big gaping hole above our basement fireplace:

The following Monday they came back, pulled the tarp off, removed their ladders, added the chimney caps, and took a picture for us:

They adjusted the heights of the openings to improve the flow of air. In a strange coincidence(?) our master bedroom closet (right next to the chimney) got a lot cooler. (Around the same time, we also had to fix the AC intake pipe that ran next to the closet, so honestly we have no idea what is making the closet cooler. Not that we're complaining.)

Hopefully we can ignore the chimney (besides yearly-ish cleanings) for a LONG time.

Veggies (Eventually)

This year we decided to try our hand at a little vegetable and herb gardening. Back in April, we sowed some seeds into one of those Burpee growing kits and crossed our fingers. There was basil, cilantro, parsley, scallions, and tomatoes.

Right off the bat, I wasn't impressed. I watered everything to the exact specifications and put the pots somewhere dark and under their little biodegradable cellophane greenhouse. It must have been too humid or something though because when I checked to see if there were any sprouts, I saw that everything was totally covered in mold! It was so nasty! Because there were some sprouts too, we decided that the pots had lived in the dark long enough and we moved them to our picture window where they would get lots of sun (and have to compete with the cats for real estate--the cats were not too happy to have to share). The mold didn't go away completely but it got a lot better (you can still see the white fuzz the white spots on the pots):

Fast forward about 4-5 weeks. The scallions never really took off but we did end up doing pretty well with the tomatoes. I didn't have the heart to throw out all the ones that I had thinned from the original pots, so whenever I could (i.e. when I didn't break a root too badly when pulling it up), I repotted those too. We gathered all the flower pots we could for temporary transplant. We moved them into a protected outdoor space (our breezeway) for a little over a week so they could acclimate to the outdoors.

Finally it was time to pot them in their permanent homes. Looks pretty pathetic, eh? It was hard to decide how much space to give them because I knew that if they survived, they would grow pretty high. But they all looked so lonely in there. A last minute addition was some white cucumbers that Burpee sent for free with our blueberry order (that's another story...). We planted them directly into the big pots without germinating them indoors.

Sometime in June, a switch got flipped and these guys started growing what seemed like several inches a day. Here they are on June 12. They got so big that we had to tie them to stakes to keep them from tipping over and snapping:

Here they are two weeks later on June 26. They had grown at least 6-8 inches!

The cucumbers in particular took off like crazy. They didn't have the head start that the tomatoes did and check them out--equally huge. And with giant prickly cucumber leaves and tendrils.

We still didn't see any flowering until about July 4th weekend. The plants by then were so tall that they have overgrown their 6-foot high stakes. We tried pruning back but I wasn't sure if we were supposed to prune veggie plants so mostly I just hoped for the best. I had expected them to stay pretty dwarfed in their tiny pots. Of course now I'm reading that the tomatoes we bought (Sweet 100) actually often grow up to 7 feet tall. Yikes! It got so bad that yesterday we took all the stakes and tied them together in the center, because the weight of the plants cause the stakes to lean very badly. They looked like they wouldn't be able to take it much longer.

But the good news is that we're getting close to harvest! The cukes are tiny (about 3 inches) but getting there.

We're nowhere near the 100-yield for our tomato plants, but we have our first delicious few of the summer this morning with breakfast.

The basil has been going so well that we had to make a double batch of pesto just to keep up (no complaints there...) and the parsley has grown at least adequately enough to save us from having to buy it a couple of times to use in some recipes. The scallions never really took off at all and we don't have a single successful plant (bunch?) so now we know they may not be worth the space and effort next year. 

As for our decisions on where and how to garden, having them in containers has made it much easier to make sure they are getting enough water (much easier to water a few pots than an in-ground garden). I think it has stopped the hordes of bunnies in our yard from being able to decimate them, as well. And being in the front of the house where all the sun is probably accelerated their growth. The only negative is that they got a lot bigger than expected, so they have become a bit of an eyesore in our front yard (and are way too big to move now). I never expected them to cover most of our front window. 

I think the cats like being able to hang out in the window and feel like they're in a forest though...

Waiting...

It's been pretty quiet here a la Brave New Home. Things just seem to slow down in the summer, lumbering about in the thick and humid air. We have a lot of things in the works but for now we are just...waiting.

First, we're waiting for the chimney guy to get around to scheduling us. He's playing a little hard to get, so that's annoying. I'm |this close| to starting over again to find new estimates, but I get the impression that this guy is good, just absent-minded*. Plus neither of us are excited at the prospect of taking time off for work just for some guys to stop by and tell us a price.

*Now it's in here for posterity. So when the project is over and I'm really angry and curse this guy out, I can look back on my adorable naivete.

Second, we're waiting on our garden. I have lots of pictures of our plants as they've been growing up but we have still yet to have any victory on produce (except basil--lots and lots of basil), so I would rather not post about it until I can sum up our experience.

Third, we're waiting on the weather. We have a big plan for the yard, but there is no way we're going out to work on it now. Between the heat, the humidity, and the mosquitoes, we wouldn't last an hour.

Fourth, we're waiting on time. Life has been a little hectic but I decided that eventually, I would repaint the new chest in our entryway. Eventually...

More long term, we are waiting on the finances to catch up to my desire to remodel the upstairs bathroom. But that's not happening for some time.

One thing that didn't wait? Our new house plants. They didn't waste any time in dying. I thought I must be getting better at the whole gardening thing, since I have some violets and an orchid growing in our kitchen. And vegetable plants that are thriving. The plant that we had in the living room originally was doing pretty well too, but it turned out that it was toxic to cats. As was nearly everything that was being sold at Home Depot or Lowes. So you can imagine my excitement when I found a few plants at a local farmers' market that came up on the toxicity list as being safe for pets. One is either a Boston Fern or a Feather Palm (it says Boston Fern but then gives the scientific name as Nephrolepis exaltata, which matches up to a Feather Palm online). The other is a Peperomia. We potted them in something pretty (really loving the new Skurar pot from Ikea on the left) and went about our merry way. Here's a picture of them from May 15:

And here they are last week:

Yeah, let's mark that down in the FAIL category...