The Veggie Garden Update & Flower Beds Tour

Nearly two weeks later, and the veggie garden is coming along. Almost everything is starting to come up, although I replanted some cuke seeds, added some pea and bean seeds, and the spinach. The cukes, peas, and beans are new seeds this year whereas the spinach are a few years old. One hill of beans are coming up and about half the peas are, so it's not a big deal if the other respective halves don't make it. I can always find greens at the Farmer's Market, so I'm not so worried about that seed stock, either. The carrot seeds seem to have migrated between the rows, so I might add more of that in the next few days, too. I've added some onions, leeks, a pot of mint (absconded from an out-of-control patch at a gardening job), and as of this weekend, sweet basil and nasturtium. I also put down burlap bags over the garden cloth, they were free, which beats buying wood chips! All-in-all, everything is pretty happy so far!

Fashionably Late to the (Veggie Garden) Party

I've been meaning to get a couple of veggie beds in for a while now. I even staked one of the plots out when I set up my strawberry bed. Now that we're past Memorial Day, when it's generally safe to plant, I have been feeling more motivated. And then I went and bought these the other day, which obviously need a home:

seeds!

So after several weeks of staring at the front lawn, and twice mowing the area I'd selected, I decided it was time to commit. My neighbor had offered to come over with his tractor and tiller attachment, but we never seemed to have the same 10 minutes available. Another friend offered the use of their small garden tiller, so on Wednesday I finally went to pick it up. On Thursday evening I did a quick go-round to scratch up the grass on the surface (and make sure that I could get the tiller to work).

Strawberry Bed!

the fruits of the students
labor last summer. . .
get it. . . fruit. . .

Last school year my Bio students begged to grow things in the spring. They had lofty aspirations of growing watermelon and other somewhat-exotic fruits and veggies, but settled for marigolds and a couple packs of strawberries that I randomly found at the hardware & garden store. They all dutifully tended to the seedlings from our return from April break until the last few days of school when they promptly forgot about them. Not one of them wanted them. Not even for their moms, even with Mother's day in the mix! And they wonder why I say no to class pets. . .

Everything did surprisingly well, and I couldn't bear to toss anything. The marigolds ended up in some of the barrels around campus, as well as over to my mom, and the strawberries went to a friend and into a few random pots that I had laying around. I didn't have high expectations, although they managed to survive the hot summer, and even bore some fruit after we made the big move to the new house in September!

obligatory artsy fruit-in-the-hand photo
(last fall's crop!)

Another Yard and Garden Update

Spring has finally arrived. We've had some warm days and cool nights and everything had just about exploded. The Mad River Valley is a week or so behind the Champlain Valley, where my mom lives, and every time I was over there over the past month so so, I was jealous of how green and springy it looked. With all the warm weather I've been spending a bunch of time working on the yard - it's hard to stay inside with the sun shining! Of course, I've already had to mow - twice in the back!

Here's a yard and garden tour, starting out back:

start of the new backyard border bed

New Yard Toy!

Vermont has this great web-based community board called Front Porch Forum, organized by town or region (I'm part of the Mad River Valley FPF), based on your street address. It's a pretty sweet free service - a community bulletin board for the digital age. I've scored a few things as well as sent other items to new homes, found a roommate, read about lost-then-found dogs, heard about - then attended - some cool free events, and learned tonight that someone got a kayak stolen from their yard (definitely not cool!). If you're in VT, and not on FPF, you're missing out, and frankly around here, it's more exciting than my facebook feed most days.

Why the excitement? This:

NEW WHEELBARROW!! 

A nearly-new, less than two year old wheelbarrow! For $35! From a really sweet older woman who needed to get a two-wheeled rig. I'm so dang excited. I know, I need a life, but seriously - no more dragging the big blue tarp around, or filling the blue recycling bin. Given how much needs raking from the yard and garden, I'm super excited to have scored this. Now I just need to find the time to get the yard work done. . .

House Project #5: The Living Room

It's been a while since the last major house project, in which I painted the kitchen. I didn't do much over the winter aside from assorted curtains and hanging some pictures and paintings. Well, I'm delighted to report that I've finished painting the living room! This is the other third of the main room of the house. One third is the kitchen and the other third is the reading nook. I wanted to get this main space finished since this is where I spend most of my time, be it alone or entertaining.

the "front" half of the living room. great light! terrible carpet & drapes.

Early April Updates - Projects Completed & Things in Progress

The snow is finally melting - I have a yard again! Well, almost. The ground is still quite frozen, so my plans to start laying out the gardens are on hold.

the melting snow has revealed that I still have a lot of leaves to rake.
and I'm so close to being able to take the holiday lights of the little front shrub -
however, the extension cord is still buried under a 2-ft plow pile

I'm on spring break - we are lucky to have two weeks - and am staycationing this year. I have more enough to do around the house, and not enough money in the bank to travel anywhere beyond my parent's over the mountain or possibly a trip to Montpelier or Burlington. But the sun is out today, and the temps are supposed to get up into the 50s this week!

Sprucing Up the Walls. . .

not really wall-related, but I did wind the
yarn blanks that mom & I dyed in May.
future mittens?

Happy March! Winter is still hanging on around here - we got a little bit of snow today (fresh powder SB & MRG!), and it's supposed to be wicked cold tomorrow. I don't mind it - I'm a huge fan of winter and am always reluctant to see it go, so hopefully we have a few more weeks left!

I'm slowly chipping away at little house projects. I've been hanging photos, maps, posters, etc. that have been collecting over the years and have been unearthed in the unpacking process, sewing curtains, agonizing over what color to paint the living room half of the main space (which actually won't happen until April, I'm sure), setting up the guest room (now that the brief foray with a roommate is over), etc. Here's a little update on what's been done the past few months.

Crafted Exchange & Another Crafty Pay-it-forward

I love making/crafting things for other people, and as a crafty gift-giver, I also appreciate receiving crafted things from others. I bet Billy through some friends in town he was visiting earlier this winter and discovered he crochet's. I think we are kindred fiber-crafting spirits. Out at the bar one evening, he decided he really liked my argyle headband, and I decided I liked the bright pom-pomed hats that he's been making like crazy. So we decided on a craft exchange!

Fruity Wall Art

Remember Crafternoon in Driggs? While on a ski vacation to Driggs to visit some college friends, I went a little crazy with my friend K's watercolors and made a slew of fruit & veggie-themed cards. I've since used most of them (it was three years ago, after all . . . wait, THREE years? Eesh, time flies!), but had a few still in my card collection. This year I've (kind of) committed to slowly working my way through my stock of craft supplies, and so I decided to turn a few of the leftover cards into wall art with the help of an 8x10 canvas I also had on hand.