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I took a bunch of pictures to chronicle our deck demolition as we go.
Here's the deck from the south side. We've had flower beds on the front and both east and west ends.
I fondly remembered Bridal Wreath hedges from my childhood and was told the Nine-Bark bushes would be much the same. Not so much. We planted a row of Nine-Bark along all three edges of the deck. Grow thick they did higher than the deck railing, but needed nearly constant pruning to keep them looking nice. I didn't like the pruning I had to do three times each growing season. Last fall, I cut them all down to practically the nubbity-nubs knowing we were going to move them this spring. (I cut them down once before and they grew back stronger than ever.)
This is the west end of the deck with a Sugar Maple growing next to it.
I love the maple tree, but over the years the blasted birds have practically killed it by pecking at the bark. Hubby thinks they go after the sweet sap. We've tried painting the bark with organic coatings as deterrents, but the birds pay no attention and have not been deterred. So, (sob) the tree is scheduled to come out.
One of the reasons the maple tree has to go is that we have grown to despise dislike the steps coming off the deck on this corner angle. So we are moving my clothesline poles (which enable me to hang clothes out on the deck) over to the middle of that side of the deck and in the new design the stairs will come off right between the uprights. Hence, maple tree must go.
Another sad tree story. This was a Nanny Berry tree off the southeast corner of the deck. The main part of the tree died (possibly committed suicide one winter), but shoots came up from the roots. We now have a Nanny Berry bush. Since then, the tree bush has never gotten any of the attractive berries.
A third (is there no end?) sad tree story. In the flower bed at the east end of the deck is an ornamental flowering crab apple tree that has never, ever flowered. Either it was mislabeled when we purchased it, or it needs another of its kind for cross-pollenation. Again, this tree has to go because we are putting another set of stairs off the deck (moving the other set of clothesline poles) and this tree is smack-dab in the way of that set of stairs.
The pots of plants you see helter-skelter on the deck are plants I wanted to save from the flower beds.
All the flower beds were delineated by 6" x 6" timbers which are pretty well on their way to compost after being up close and personal with the soil for nearly 20 years. The beds on both the east and west ends of the deck are being eliminated, and a larger (in an effort to eat up lawn that has to be mowed) bed will be constructed on the south in front of the deck.
Got all that? It's a start and something we can work on until this crazy, cold weather of ours (we had a heavy frost this morning) decides to turn appropriate for planting in the garden.
We can safely say the forest fire danger of the past several weeks is gone. We've been having successive days of gray, gloomy skies and plenty of rain. Large puddles are standing everywhere outside. This morning the temperature was 37 degrees . . . with snowflakes falling. Good gardening weather does not come early to the north woods.
Checking the forecast for the rest of this week, we see nothing but storm clouds with rain and low temps day and night, but then next week (please, please, pretty please), it should warm up.
This spring weather (ha!) is very reminiscent of the cooler climate (even well into summer) we experienced when we first moved up here forty years ago. (It's a wonder we toughed it out and survived.) Weather does go in cycles and I'm beginning to wonder if this is the start of another cycle of cooler summers. Certainly good if you don't like hot, humid weather, but more of a challenge if you depend on gardening to supply a good amount of your food for the year.
Speaking of delicious food, I got notification my 200 new strawberry plants were shipped yesterday. Funny, back in March when I ordered them, mid-May didn't sound like it would be too early for planting. Now I fear they may have to cool their heels roots in the bottom of the refrigerator for a week or so before going out into the garden. Not only is it cold out there now, but also very muddy.
But don't you worry about us wandering around aimlessly with nothing to do. Seems we're never at a loss for keeping ourselves occupied.
We've started demolition on our deck which we need to replace this year. (Yes, it truly does need replacement.) I've taken lots of pictures which I'll get up in a post soon.
Well, anyway, this weather is good for something. Sleeping! It's so exceptionally hard to pull oneself out of bed on these gray, cold mornings. If we were wise (Yeah, yeah, IF!) we'd find a way to stock up on the rejuvenating hours of shut-eye because we'll need them if when summer does arrive.
I don't know what in the world made me think of it today, but when I was in eighth grade I had the mumps. It spread like wildfire through my class that year so I wasn't the only one to suffer. But, oh my, suffer I did.
Mumps is a viral disease and is extremely contagious. The virus is easily spread via respiratory secretions (saliva). Coughing or sneezing, touching one's nose or mouth, eating or drinking from the same receptacles or kissing can spread the virus. In my eighth grade class of teeny-boppers, of course there was a lot of kidding, teasing, and giggling going on about the "kissing."
It's no wonder so many of us were out of school with the mumps. A person who contracts the virus is contagious for six days before symptoms start to show and nine days after they start.
What are the symptoms? Swelling of the salivary glands on one or both sides of the face giving a "hamster-like" look to anyone unlucky enough to contract the disease.
I got them on both sides of my face. I can still remember how miserable I was. My face was swollen to a gargantuan size, and I was nearly unrecognizable. The swelling was accompanied by pain which increased when I tried to eat or drink. Lying on my back caused the swelling to feel as if my ears were being ripped off. Sitting or standing caused gravity to make my "pouches" feel as if they had ten pound weights in them. I couldn't lie on either side because anything touching the glands was painful.
The physical pain added to the severe angst of missing out on two whole weeks of school (my social life!) made me one very unhappy camper.
My mom and dad both worked during the day so my grandma was in charge of my care. I spent days slumped on the couch feeling so weak all I could do was moan and groan. I can remember watching a lot of Grandma's daily TV programs through my bleary eyes. (I may never be able to forget "Queen for a Day" where the woman with the biggest, sorriest sob story had a wish granted.) Grandma made me gargle with warm salt water three times a day which did not feel good and take aspirin for the pain which always got stuck in my throat because it was hard for me to swallow.
She did her best to minimize the pain of the weight of my swollen glands by putting a folded white tea towel under my chin, up along each side of my face and tied on top of my head. I then looked like a hamster with rabbit ears. I vaguely recall seeing a picture someone took of me in that sorry state. It would be a great addition to this post to have it to share, but I have no idea what happened to it.
Does anyone get the mumps anymore? It certainly is rare that you hear of it these days.
Good golly, isn't it weird when such an old but vivid memory like this one pops into your head? I'm sure there are thousands of memories from my growing up years that are gone forever, but some remain in the deep, dark recesses of my mind to surface at odd times like this one did today.
Any of you old enough to remember that commercial? No matter. It was pretty silly anyway. The gist of it was, "I need a rest and time to myself."
Both Papa Pea and I have been working really hard physically all week and our wagons are draggin'. So we're taking a self-imposed day off tomorrow to do only things that we want to do. Not to say we haven't wanted to do the things we've been accomplishing this week, but tomorrow is to be more of a relaxing, fun time, do only what is classified as fluffing off, pure entertainment, indulging in time doing whatever re-energizes and re-fuels our personal beings. (You know, those things that responsible [ha!] adults put off until we "have the time.")
Truth to tell, for me, it's also going to be a time for my body to recuperate. What hurts? My right wrist, my left heel, my lower back, a hitch in the get-a-long of my left hip, both shoulders, my right elbow and a shooting pain in the transitional arch of my right foot. (Other than that I'm feeling pretty good.)
I wonder if the fact that I'm staying away from sugar is the cause of my body falling apart? I bet that's it. Yeah, that must be it! Pie. I need two slices of Banana Cream Pie. And Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast. And a big bowl of Salty Caramel ice cream. I'm certain I'd feel better then.
My hard-working husband sharpened up a chainsaw and a spare, put on his protective gear and finally started working on our wood supply today.
It's not that we don't take seriously having a good quantity of dry, seasoned wood under cover, ready and waiting to be used. We've talked about getting going on the wood for a couple of months now, but there have been plenty of other tasks that seemed more important.
Although we heat with wood, we also use L.P. gas in the house, too. It fuels our water heater and kitchen stove and we have a gas wall heater in the main part of the house as a back-up. Plus, this past winter Papa Pea spent many hours in the basement installing a medium-sized gas furnace there that we could use if we were to be gone from home for any length of time.
I'm sure another reason prepping firewood hasn't been at the top of our list is because we have a good amount left that we put up last summer. Matter of fact, hubby has guesstimated we might have enough for two years of heating completely dried and ready to use. (We may have gotten a little carried away in the wood working department last year.)
Believe me, it's not a usual happenstance to have so much wood remaining at the end of a heating season. So why do we this year, you ask? (Didn't I hear somebody ask?)
Well, this past winter we experimented. We decided to try keeping the temperature inside the house lower than we had before. I can't truly remember whose idea it was or why we made the decision to do this, but boy howdy, did it ever make a difference in the amount of wood we went through.
But, aha! Were we uncomfortable? Suffer from chilblains? Have to wear our outside clothing inside? Nope, not in the least.
The temperature was kept in the range of 64 to 68 degrees and unless we were spending a couple of hours in a sedentary state (which doesn't seem to happen often around here), we were always quite comfortable. Actually, the few times when we stoked the wood stove a little too vigorously and the temperature rose to 70 degrees or so, both of us were too warm, complained and a window got popped open. In previous winters we kept the house heated to about 70-72 degrees so there certainly wasn't a huge divergence in the lower temperature this winter. We've talked several times about how much less wood we burned this past heating season and are pleased as punch it turned out to be so much less.
Needless to say, we can't see any reason not to continue following the same plan next year. But that doesn't mean we won't continue to put up enough firewood so that we have no worries . . . no matter what comes our way.
I caved. I gave in. I succumbed. I planted in the garden today.
And the weather is predicted to be so nice for the next week that I didn't even put a cold frame over the bed I planted.
As usual the first seeds that go in are ones that will give us some fresh greens to make into big bowls of salad with such nutritional value you just can't get anywhere but out of your own garden.
Now is that gorgeous or what? (Okay, not so much right now, but I'm imagining what it will look like in thirty days.)
I planted this one whole raised bed in four foot long rows. One row each of Scarlet Frill (a mustard I can't get enough of), spinach, kale, arugula and mizuna mustard. Two rows of radishes and six rows of lettuce. If that won't make a yummy salad, I don't know what will.
You may recall I really pushed Mother Nature this year (in northern Minnesota anyway) and planted my Sweet Pea flower seeds on April 15 when it was still really cold. Sweet Pea seeds supposedly should sprout in 14 to 21 days. This is day seventeen and you can bet I've been giving the soil beneath the trellis the oogle-y eye nearly every day lately. This morning? Sigh. Still no sign of my little Sweet Peas poking through. Barren ground and trellis shown above.
But then tonight as I was putting away my gardening gear . . . wha . . . wha . . . what's that? Lookee, lookee! Two little shoots that made the supreme effort to push on up through the dirt today. Now with the rain forecast for tomorrow, I may see a bunch more of the little green guys by tomorrow night. Looks like the Sweet Peas may be a go after all.
Papa Pea was busy in the garden today, too. He finished spreading compost and did quite a bit of cultivating. The Pumpkin Patch is shown above. Said Pumpkin Patch is going to be, I'm pretty sure, turned into the Strawberry Patch this year. I won't be able to fit all of the 200 plants I have coming in that one area, but it will hold a good bunch of them. The rest will go (somewhere) in the Field Garden.
This is the Field Garden which along with the Pumpkin Strawberry Patch is now ready for planting. Soon, soon, won't be long now! ("Soon" being defined as in about a month when the new strawberry plants arrive and it will be safe to plant a good portion of my other crops.) The lighter patch you see in the picture above is my remaining "old" strawberries which we hope will (not be too old to) give us enough berries for fresh eating this year.
These are the three containers, about one cup each, of fresh frozen chives I have left from my winter's supply. They still look pretty good, don't they? They freeze so well and add so much color to lots of different dishes all winter long.
As you can see I made it with plenty to spare because I certainly could be cutting fresh chives right now if I didn't still have these frozen ones.
There was a while a couple of weeks ago when I had serious doubts that we would ever get spring weather, but it has finally arrived. Time to truly switch gears and get outside to play in the dirt. Yippee!
