Planting Projects Around the House

Well, I think I'm going to stop the "counting of the days". Wisconsin has made some abrupt changes, as many of you may have seen on the news. The entire state was released of any stay-at-home order. But then county by county, and city by city, they re-instated the orders so nobody really knew what was going on!

Some TV stations were reporting one thing, and then things would change an hour later and then they'd have to report something the extreme opposite.

I guess for right now, we will just play it close to home, we will continue to socially distance, and wait and see what happens. Texas did this same abrupt opening, and now two weeks later they have a resurgence of cases. We hope that's not going to happen here.

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The day started out with a fine misty fog coming up. I woke up at 5:30 and let the dogs out. I looked out over to the big backyard and it looked so beautiful. I had to go back to the bedroom and grabbed my phone to take a picture.

The dew on the grass was 

like little pearls of glass in the light.

I started up a pot of coffee and popped a couple apple turnovers from the freezer into the oven. Within 30 minutes the house smelled wonderful... and it woke Steve up.

We shared our early morning breakfast treat as the sun came along and burned off the misty fog.  The kids texted and asked us to bring back the long extension ladder, as they had some projects figured out for the day.  We hauled it over to their house while they were gathering supplies in Green Bay.  (nicely, they picked up some building supplies for us too!  Thank you Waylen!!!)

Now to our own projects:

Steve carried my plants out of the garage to get some fresh air and sunshine.  Today I was going to try to get a bunch of them planted!

I pulled up a pile of edging stones from a different part of the flowerbeds and trundled my wheelbarrow over to make some new beds near the pergola.  Steve said he wanted to do the digging, so he could save the "turf" to put in another spot in the yard.

He started working on another basement window, and brought up the main one for me to clean up and paint.  It sure beats the cost of replacing them with new ones. I got that done before breakfast!

Then I decided to start planting some of my flowers.

When we bought the pergola last month, the seller threw in two funky looking conical shaped hanging planting baskets.

Over the past winter I had rooted some strangling ivy branches from my big plant in the office. I had them growing in little pots on the window sill in the kitchen up until now. They were getting awfully long and one vine even started crawling up the pull chain for the light fixture over the sink. Another one had started weaving itself within the lace of my window curtain! It was time to get these ivy plants out and planted to do their job outside and decorate my pergola!!

Steve screwed in two new little eyelet hooks and I planted the ivy into these funky baskets. I interwove some of the pieces through the red lattice. Hopefully they will grow up and over and around and looked absolutely beautiful.

I have more ivy plants to plant around the bottom sections of the lattice on each side. Steve started digging up the sod and make me two little flower beds on each side of the pergola.  He was happy, he got his sod!

Then I will weave that ivy up within the lattice too. Hopefully soon it will be covered with beautiful ivy on that side.

On the other side, he started digging up flower beds to put in my precious clematis plants. These were my Mother's Day present. I have a red one and a white one for each side of the pergola as we enter it from the front yard. This will hopefully grow up the front white trellises and cover up with beautiful blooms, all summer long.

I popped back into the garage to paint a second coat on the window because the first one had finally dried.


I took time to fill the bird feeders. Today we even spotted a beautiful bluebird come to hang out at the feeders and see what was going on. We've had about five or six Baltimore Orioles now because of putting out the grape jelly. I remarked to Steve after I filled up the bird feeders, that feeding these birds is costing us more than what we pay to feed our dogs!!!


Now I took out the three long red window boxes and set them on the ledges of the front porch. Into each one I planted geraniums, two deep red ones flanking each side of a white one in the middle. This year I splurged and bought a little bit bigger type zonal geranium that seem to be hardier with a thicker stem.

After I got all three window boxes done and in place, Steve came and sat on the front porch swing with me for a while.

We relaxed and reflected on how much we were doing today compared to what we were doing a year ago. A year ago we'd only been in the house for two weeks and we were going gangbusters with projects. He had already started moving the doorway and creating a half bath with the laundry room. We were still unloading one load at a time from the rental storage unit, and I was unpacking boxes and finding places for things here there and everywhere. We were painting some things and fixing other things and rearranging things and just adjusting to life up here in Oconto --- closer to the grandchildren. It was one of the best decisions I think we have ever made.


We made up a little lunch, and then I popped back out to plant all of my precious coleus around the circular flower bed and bird bath in the backyard. These are all of the plants that I have wintered over a year after year after year since the 1990s. I got them from my friend Connie, and I've been so careful to save enough every fall to keep them going all winter long.

I planted them around in the circle and I hope they will flourish. I did keep one little cluster in the window in the kitchen, sitting in a glass of water, just in case they need to root and start a new pot.

(I bought the little Dutch boy and girl

a couple years ago

at a rummage sale in Chilton)

By this time, I think I was really starting to slow down. By 2:30 I thought it's time to crawl in bed and take a little nap. Steve was still going gangbusters on stapling a new screen in the open window frames down in the basement. But I decided it was time to take a little break and close the eyelids for a while.

It didn't last long, but was enough to refresh me so I could get back out in start cutting apart some of the ivy and figuring out what needed to get planted where.

I did plant some more geraniums in the two beautiful cement planters in front of the she shed. We brought these planters up from our last home in Chilton too. I just love how they look and I'm glad that I am able to find a nice spot to put them to catch the western sunlight in the evenings.  That cement is the original apron to the single stall garage before we converted it.

The wind started kicking up and has shifted, even though the temperatures got up into the low 70s, the wind started to bite and blast from the Northeast.

I didn't finish planting the ivy, and we headed out on the front porch for a while We got out of the wind because the porch faces the West. I actually got some sunburn from sitting in the sunshine on the swing for a while. Or maybe I got it while planting or digging. We had soft music playing, glasses of ice water, and we spent a enjoyable late afternoon just relaxing. We need to learn to do more of that!!!

I whipped up some salads for supper and we cooked up a single pasty to split, made by the pasty oven in Florence Wisconsin. We are able to buy these at the local Piggly Wiggly in Oconto Falls, and they are pretty much my favorite pasty.

We did take the dogs out for a little romp through the big backyard and then hooked on their leashes to loop around the rest of the block. The wind was blasting pretty strongly now and they said it's going to not let up overnight. So I'm glad I didn't finish planting any more of the delicate plants and flowers, and I won't even think about planting the delicate thin stemmed tomato plants yet for maybe another week.

I think we will curl up for the evening and play some cribbage and Yahtzee maybe watching HGTV shows and get some more ideas???

Day 46 - Scavenger Hunt Surprise

Yesterday, we were going about our putzing around doing some housework. You know, a little of this a little of that. Suddenly we saw some faces at our back door with a little tap tap tap sound on the glass.

What???

Oh my goodness! What a surprise!

It was our two grandchildren Chelsea and Clayton, along with a playmate Maddi, and their teacher from the Oconto Non-Profit Child Care Center.

 I was so choked up, even as I am typing this now, I am crying!

The kids were missing us, and they had decided to surprise us and put together a creative and thoughtful task to do at our house.  (the daycare center director who knows us, had called ahead to our daughter to make sure this was okay to surprise us)

They stood back six feet from the door and set down a paper bag and set down the instructions on the walkway. Then they told us to go back in the house and not look out the windows???

It was a 
"Social Distancing Scavenger Hunt"!!!

Here is a close up of their list:

They came here to hide things in our backyard!  Then they left another sheet instructing us that we have to take a picture of each thing we find.

We obliged and hid our eyes and didn't look out the windows.  Once they were done doing their little activity in our backyard, they came back onto the walkway by the pergola.

We opened the door to talk with them, at a distance while we stood in the open doorway.  I had just finished sewing three new masks with cute little woodland creatures that I gave to each of them to keep. Nolan helped tie them onto each kid.

They were so excited to have 

masks of their own 

to wear back to the daycare.

I also left a little bag on the walkway, at a safe distance, with some granola bars and chewing gum snacks.

We chatted for a little while, but my arms ached so badly because I just wanted to hug them. I mean I could feel a physical ache in my arms as well as in my heart. We had to be happy with what we could get, even if it wasn't actual touching and hugging. We were so blessed to even be thought of and missed.

Sadly, the kids got back in the vehicle with their teacher and headed back to the daycare.

Steve and I gathered up our little bag, and put on our gloves and read the list of items to look for in our backyard.

It was a lot of fun! Some things they put out in pretty obvious places, and other things were hidden really well.  It took us a while. They are good at this.

I just knew it was Clayton who had put this plastic cup out in the fence surrounding the apple tree. The tree is a special one that they gave us as a housewarming present last year. I just knew it had to be him, he would be the only one that would walk through the squishy ground to get way out there and stick the cup in the fence!

Bit by bit we found all the items except for the "2 pine cones". We looked high and low all over for any type of unusual pine cones. We finally gave up and just collected four little ones from our own trees and said good enough. That was the last item on the list.

Then we took pictures of everything and contacted the daycare to send the pics and show the kids that we did it. Chelsea then confessed that there were NEVER any pinecones! She said that they couldn't find any to take along and she forgot to cross it off the list before they attached the list to the bag!!

So the joke was on them, 

because we actually

 did find some pine cones!!

Thank you Oconto Area Non-profit Child Care Center!!!

You have no idea how this warmed up this lonely grandmother's and grandfather's hearts!!

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Speaking of mushy ground, here is how our backyard looked about a week ago.

We had a lot of water from runoff from snow melting, as well as quite a few rainy days. We have a very high water table the last few years around the Great Lakes, and we are located close to the bay waters of the Green Bay one mile away.

The water in our yard is so deep we actually have ducks and geese swimming around in the water. I kid you not!

Well, my last blog I mentioned how Steve was carefully working his way back and forth along our fence line to unclog some drainage piping that was buried there.  Our neighbor said it used to drain out from our yard into the curb via a small outlet, but it hasn't been working now for a few years and must be plugged up.

Steve got the line free of mud by shoving a sturdy rubber hose with the water blasting at full force. A couple feet at a time, and he would let it drain back out. He was finally able to run water completely through it all the way out to the curb. From there it runs down the street and off into the marsh. It does not go into the city storm sewer.

Now that he got the interior of the pipe freed up of mud, he was able to start draining some of the standing water in our yard. He had an extra old sump pump and a lot of hose. He was able to set the pump out in the middle of the deepest puddle and drape the cord up high along the fence line back to the grounded GFCI outlet in the garage.

He located the hose over to the drainage line where there is a sunken 5 gallon bucket as a chamber where he could set a pump into it if he needed to.

From there it drains out 

another hundred feet 

underground and then pours

out the opening 

in the curb.

At first it was a lot of sand, mud, and silt that came out of that opening. Now it's finally clear water being pumped through from the pond and out to the curb.

Just look at this happy little boy, in his rubber boots, sloshing up and down in the gutter. He was like a happy kid who was playing with toy boats or sticks in a little stream of water, making it go.

After two days of his creative pumping... moving the hose from here and there, he was able to drain our yard down to this!

Let us hope we have a normal spring and summer this year and have a regular yard without the backed up water ponds that we had last year for most of the summer.  This will help with the mosquito population and let us have a nice lawn without getting our lawnmower stuck (again).

This was all deep water 

across to the greener grass

the day before~ 

All of our neighbors around us said last summer was the worst in a very long time for standing water in the yards. It's not normally like that in our neighborhood.  Maybe this is a start to a good thing?

~~~~~~~~

Steve was busy with another project in the back yard this week. He had been cutting down some dead trees and odds and ends throughout our woods. He made quite a nice little pile of firewood. Our neighbor will take that because he uses it to heat his house. We might keep some for campfires.

Steve took all the brush and branches and hooked them with a tow strap to the back of the Tracker. He dragged them across the back part of our yard out to the edge of the gravel road that borders the backside of our property.

Even though it is gravel, it is still a city street, and the city does come down it with the tree chipper. They will take care of the branches for us. That is a free service to City residents, courtesy of our property taxes.

It sure beats having to drag the branches all of the way out to the front yard, at the other end of the property, by the street in front of the house.  This is at the back end of the Big Backyard.  The dogs sure like ramming around and playing back here. 

~~~~~~~~

I got out my paintbrush today and spruced up some more parts on the pergola.  Now the columns have a second coat of paint and the two back boards are now red. These are for the red lattice to attach on to.

Steve and I cut two panels of treated wood lattice that was left over from a garden structure we took down when we bought the house last year.

These two pieces go on the left and right of the back side that faces the backyard. Will make a nice backdrop for the white grids that are on the front sides. I started painting up the first piece, and I will work on it a little bit each day. It seems like I get a sore "tennis elbow" if I do too much painting in one day.


I already painted this cute white little plant stand that is going to go on the front porch, as well as this red base from a bird bath that Steve found in the woods. I'm going to set a pretty flower pot on top of it in our flower garden..

It's been a long day, and we got quite a few little projects done. Besides a bunch of flowerbed cleanup, I sewed up 10 assorted face masks for the neighbors. Then I made a creative supper of beef stew from leftover pot roast from yesterday.

I think now it's time to play a couple hands of cribbage with my hubby before I hop in the tub and relax these aching bones from all of my gardening and painting today.

Day 42 - Time For Trellis Grids on the Pergola

It is now day 42 of our quarantine. I keep counting the days on the calendar and wonder when we're going to be able to finally return back to normal?  We need to isolate and let this virus die out, and hopefully get a vaccine or an immunity process to protect the vulnerable (like us).

Our governor in Wisconsin released a plan with various measured steps to release certain businesses and put some things back into action. Of course, it all depends on the testing numbers and a percentage of decrease for a set number of days before phase one can be put into action. Cleverly, it's called the Badger Bounce-Back, named after Bucky Badger who is the Wisconsin University sports mascot.  But until we have 14 days of decline in numbers, nothing can be put into motion.

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In the meantime... although it was a cold and windy day yesterday, complete with some thunder, lightning and hail, we started the next step of our project.

The next task that we are wishing to create for our pergola are two trellis grids that go on each side of the columns, facing the street. In front of these grids, on the ground, I will put two white cement planters with ivy plants. Hopefully, the ivy will grow up intertwining amongst the trellis grids and really add a nice design feature to the facade of the home.

On the back side of the pergola walkway, facing the backyard, I plan to put two full panels of red painted lattice that matches what we have underneath the front porch. This will be a nice backdrop behind the white trellis grid as you look from the front to the rear.

I drew up some ideas about how to make the white trellis grids that will go on the street side of the pergola. The main goal is not to have it attached to either building in anyway. Then it is not a fixture and is not taxable. Nothing gets dug into the ground either. So these trellises need to attach firmly to the bottom walkway base and the top of pergola.

We both came up with various ideas, and scrambled among our squirreled away reserve of building materials. We had the center grids, already in pieces, left over from the original purchase of the pergola that I painted from Blue to White.

We needed sturdy framing around the edges. Steve had three large long two-by-fours. I mean real original two-by-fours that are 2in by 4in left over from when we removed the single stall garage door on the attached garage. That is how they made lumber a hundred years ago. These were removed during the process of closing up the garage door opening to make the three windows for the She Shed. Steve used all new lumber in that new opening when he added the header and King studs with newer dimensional lumber.  Glad he saved the old stuff. Reuse - Repurpose - Recycle.

He took these old huge two-by-fours and I helped him run them through his table saw one at a time to cut them down to a usable size for our trellis grids.

I painted them up with two coats of the red paint that matches our trim and shutters on the house.  Glad I still have half a bucket of that red on hand.

After they were dry, with some careful measuring and planning, we were able to cut them up into the correct sizes needed to make the trellis grid frames.

We used a square to make sure they were correct level and even. We had to construct them inside of the garage on sawhorses because the weather outside was blustering and stormy.

Once the two main frames were together, we took one out and dry fitted it into place on the side of the pergola. Yes! It was going to work. We rushed it back inside as we were blowing away from the wind and it was starting to rain.  No time for a picture.

The temperature dropped quickly from the mid-60s down to the forties in less than 1 hour. Storm clouds were rolling in and it really was getting nasty outside.

Safe inside Steve's warm cozy garage, we started measuring and figuring out the spaces for the white grids. They were made in opposites, so one can go on each side of the columns of the pergola facing towards the street.

Using a little bit of math and a little bit of dumb luck, we spaced out the little white pieces as evenly as we could. Some were warped a little bit, but we did the best we could.

I wanted to mimic the white grid pattern of the French doors and French Windows of the She Shed.

The second one went faster than the first one, because we could lay it right on top of the first one and construct it in the same way, just making sure it was opposite in configuration so one could go on the left and one could go on the right of the columns.

I touched up any little boo boos we did to the paint during our assembly process. They are now standing up in the garage drying overnight.  This is the "back side" facing out right now.  The "outward finished side" is up against the wall.

 In the morning 

we will be able to attach them 

if the weather cooperates.

(the grey weathered lattice panels in the background will be cut and painted red in the next step, that will go on the backside of the pergola facing the backyard.)

When I was done dabbing up the paint, we dashed back into the house, and the rain and thunderstorms erupted into a layer of hail!!! 

It cleared up for just a tiny bit before dinner time. We were able to open the side door on the she shed that leads out to the dogs' potty yard. I had four more white brackets for decorating the wooden screen doors. This is the wooden screen door we bought last year from Home Depot. We trimmed that up with four more of the white brackets to make it look pretty too. Even though others don't see it from the street, we see it every day multiple times while we let the dogs in and out.  

Ahhhh Pretty! 

It then began to rain again, and eventually turned into icky windy wintery weather. It was a good evening to stay in, play cribbage, and watch a little TV.

STAY IN

STAY SAFE

STAY HEALTHY