'Tis the Season

It's spring, so that means we're out in the yard every chance we get. The really awful bugs haven't come out yet and it's lovely and not too humid. So of course we garden.

This year, we have the addition of the vegetable garden to get ready (mostly by Grandma but with a little physical labor from D). The walls went up last fall and so Grandma got to work rototilling the ground and getting it ready for planting.

To our surprise, she also put down a landscaping cloth, to help keep the weeds out. Nothing I've ever used on a vegetable garden before, but she's the expert. We'll see how it turns out.

At the same time that she was getting the plot cleared, we got 3 cubic yards of compost, both to fill the garden and to help with other areas around the yard. After D brought 13 wheelbarrow's worth of compost to the garden (there's that physical labor part I mentioned), it was ready for planting all the seedlings that had been growing in our picture window for the last month.

We have two little additions to our garden to keep watch over it and make sure that the animals keep out. They'll probably be pretty dingy and sun-bleached by the end of the season but for now they're looking chipper and ready for action.

With the vegetables planted, it's time to move onto other things. The weeds have truly taken over our flower beds. To the point where we aren't even sure where to begin on removing them. We're starting with the front flower beds, since those are the ones most visible to the neighbors (and also the less weedy, so they seem more manageable). Remember when liriope was our only problem? Seems like there's a new intrusive weed every year.

At the rate we're going, I'd say I have maybe 3 more good weekends of outdoor time before retreating indoors. And we probably only have about 6 month's worth of gardening that needs doing. Hm....that doesn't quite work out, does it?

First steps to a shed

So we know we want a shed (though we're not totally sure anymore if we're getting one this year - thanks taxes...). And we know we want it on the already existing concrete pad at the back of the house. The problem is, there's a brick oven back there, firmly rooted in place. I was loath to get rid of it because it really is cute and something I always said we would use "one day." But approaching 10 years in this house and no plans to ever make something of it, D was not so sentimental. He considered it an obstacle to getting our long-desired storage. So down it came.

Over the course of the last three weeks or so, he took it apart piece by piece. This was the starting point:

With a chisel and a mallet, he managed to free large blocks of masonry. At first, he tried to go brick by brick, but realized that they would never break down so neatly. So instead, he went for manageable chunks:

 The chimney/tower part, down on the ground:

 More of the base removed:

 As the brick oven came down, the debris pile went up...

 Until finally the debris pile was all that remained.

Here's another view, with the oven scraped away, including the masonry at the bottom that glued it in place on the concrete. We still have the debris and may slowly bring it to the curb on trash day. We considered building up the walls around our soon-to-be vegetable garden, until D did some reading and learned that these blocks could have asbestos in them - at last the inner ones that contained the hottest part of the oven. Better safe than sorry - certainly not something we want as a retaining wall holding in the soil that is growing our summer veggies.

Next up, deciding if we are going to buy this year or not and working on the permitting if so.

Spring is has arrived, slowly but surely, and we're getting in lots of time outside in the yard. First up was our snowdrops, well after the last snows but still arriving while it was quite cold. Our neighbor gave these to us and they really cheer up the area at the side of the house where we keep our garabage bins.