Tag Archives: projects

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If there’s one within a hundred miles, I will find it.

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If you remember from a previous post, I’m highly susceptible to the dreaded brown tail moth rash. Seriously, if there’s one of those little bastards in my neighborhood, my town or even my county… it will find me and make me pay.

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Their hairs are microscopic and if you come in contact? You’ll know it within a few hours. Which is what happened to me after weeding my perennial bed the other day, even though I wore gloves and made a point to avoid brushing up against the tree.

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My knee…

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And arm a few hours after showering. I had the rash on my legs, my back, my stomach, my arms and especially my right knee. That section of flesh was positively on fire with uncontrollable itching… and by the next day?

* warning – if you’re eating while reading this, you might want to skip the next picture *

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My right knee looked like Mount Vesuvius, and not in a good way. Failing to understand why this particular body part suffered such an extreme reaction, I examined the pillow I was crouching on and sure enough… I had squished a moth to death on the right side and ground his toxic hairs deep into my epidermis.

Life has not really been worth living this week, and if you happen to have any extra rough grade sandpaper lying around… feel free to send it my way so I can rip off what’s left of my skin.

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The wrong kind of weed.

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Now that we had my longed for pallet of stones, it was time to attack the garden of weeden .

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Since the damage to my knee, I try to avoid anything that has to be done in a crouched or kneeling position but I’d put this off for two years and if pain was the price I had to pay for a new perennial bed? So be it.

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An hour and a half in, I was sore.

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Two and a half hours in I was popping Tylenol and Motrin like Jelly Bellies.

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At the end of the day my knee was creaking like the front door of a haunted house, but it was done. A 10 x 20 patch of virgin soil, ready for a stone border and planting.

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Rockin’ and slowly rollin’.

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We took a short break for lunch after getting the first half of stone stacked at home and then headed back out for the rest.

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Me.

Dirty, hot, and sweaty but smiling ear to ear because I was surrounded by rocks.

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While the yard man was picking up the second half of our stones with the forklift, my husband met a Marine. And if that wasn’t bad enough… he was also a fellow Vietnam Veteran. Much talking ensued. Sooo much talking. By the time they were done gabbing and ready to spread the rocks in the truck bed, the husband decided he didn’t want to go to the extra trouble and told the kid to just set it down as is.

I disagreed. Vocally and quite loudly. Naturally, I was ignored. I lamented hurting his new (old as dirt) truck and kept saying it wasn’t worth the risk of straining the engine and suspension. For that? I got ‘the look’. You know the one, the “how dare you question my manly logic?” look.

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We drove the 25 odd miles home on the back roads at 30mph with a squatted rear end and an overheating engine. The truck strained big time and we realized this second load was much closer to 2,000 lbs than the 1,500 we thought. 5 miles from home the temperature gauge was pegging out. I begged him to stop, but no. I swear at that point he would rather have blown his engine than admit I was right.

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We made it home, barely. With a smoking hood and a radiator that was literally boiling. I could hear it… he couldn’t (because he’s half deaf in one ear, thank you USMC) ergo it wasn’t happening.

Men!

You really are a ridiculous species.

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As the truck temperature came down from surface of the sun hot, we got back to work…

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And made a lovely little pyramid of stone. We’re definitely going to need another pallet or two to complete my vision of the perfect garden border. He says no, but trust me this is nowhere near enough.

Can’t say that I’m looking forward to another trip like that though.

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So we bought some rocks.

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After a full day of shopping for rocks…. the sheer joy of it made my heart sing!…. a decision was made and we returned the next day to make our purchase.

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I tried unsuccessfully to talk the husband into a few prime boulders…

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But settled for a pallet of fieldstone. Rule #1 of working with stone? If someone agrees to build you a garden border… don’t push your luck.

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Because the husband’s new (read – old as dirt) truck only has a a half ton capacity and a pallet weighs 3,000 lbs… I wanted to have the stone delivered. But the fee was $150 so my thrifty spouse wanted no part of that. The compromise? Split open the wire, divide the bundle and spread half the weight in the bed.

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This was hot, dirty work but we made the first trip home safely.

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And then stacked the rocks in the garden they’ll be bordering.

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1,500lbs of stone seems like a lot more when you have to keep moving them.

To be continued…

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Rocks. Glorious rocks!

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It has begun.

The search for rocks to build a new border for my defunct perennial bed is underway and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.

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We went shopping…

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For rocks!

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Did I mention the aforementioned rocks are not cheap? Many rocks will be needed for this project so we drove around all day to multiple yards to compare prices.

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So.

Many.

Rocks!

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I think I died and went to heaven right on that spot.

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This will be our border. 1-3” fieldstone. 3,000 lbs a pallet.. and at $458 per it was the cheapest we found. The bed is 10’x20’ … I say we’ll need two pallets , maybe 3 for a finished bed border… the husband says we’ll start with one.

Silly man. Doesn’t he know you can never have too many rocks?

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I used to have a garden.

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I used to have a beautiful perennial garden in our back yard. It was a lovely little brick bordered bed and over the years I filled it with a varied assortment of colorful flowers.

There was purple lupine.

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The harder to grow white lupine.

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And some fabulous red bee balm.

A few years in, a little apple tree seeded itself and since I didn’t have the heart to pull it up… it grew happily alongside the phlox, black eyed Susans and Shasta daisies.

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My garden made a wonderful foreground in photos of the big barn construction progress.

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And I had many happy years of bright blooms and vases full of freshly cut flowers.

Until my husband bought the beast.

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The monster zero turn lawn mower that flings grass clippings and weeds what seems like 100 miles. No matter how many times I begged him to reverse direction and steer clear, over the years my bed was overtaken by weeds. No matter how many of the damn things I pulled, dug up or chopped… I couldn’t contain the growth and they slowly started choking out my flowers.

By 2019 I gave up.

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I bought numerous bags of mulch.

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Weed whacked everything down to ground level…

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And covered the whole thing, leaving only the tree. And while I missed my riotous blooms, the aesthetic was pleasing enough to satisfy.

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Of course the husband and his big orange beast kept throwing grass in the bed so I kept getting down on my hands and knees to weed. Until I blew out my knee in the fall of 2020 and could no longer crouch or kneel without considerable pain.

So I gave up again, and now? It looks like this.

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A large brick bordered bed of weeds. It disgusts me on a daily basis but I vowed not to touch it again until a new, taller stone border could be built. And now that the husband is retired with nothing but time on his hands….?

To be continued….

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It’s a blogging miracle.

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A project was just finished at Casa River.

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Without a word of nagging or litany of snarky comments from yours truly.

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Yes boys and girls, somewhere in Maine pigs are flying.

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Because the backyard stone wall rebuild is finished… and the only reason I can give is the fact that I blogged about it.

So if you sent positive completion waves and good juju? I thank you.

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As does Lord Dudley for the fresh patch of rolling dirt. And if finishing a project he started in less than a year wasn’t shocking enough?

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I came home a few days later to a freshly laid patch of sod. Which he hasn’t watered once, but hey…. one miracle at a time.

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Once more unto the bleach…

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I was back at the outdoor bleaching again this weekend, following trails of green algae with my spray bottle and pressure washing attachment.

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Spraying in the corner of the deck left me absolutely soaked and I wouldn’t be surprised if my hair has blonde streaks now. But everything looks fresh and clean again… so mission accomplished.

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While I was at it I cleaned the furniture as well.

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We used to store this set in the barn during the winter but since the man cave conversion it’s been riding out the snow in situ and was in dire need of a cleanse.

P.S. no worms were harmed or relocated during the making of this post.

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Worms do not like bleach.

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Yesterday I started a chore I’ve been putting off for two years. After a month of (not so) subtly hinting the husband could help me, I gave up and did it myself. Armed with a spray bottle of bleach, multiple scrubby sponges and a pressure hose attachment I attacked the shady sides of our vinyl sided garage.

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Naturally I forgot to take a before photo…

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But this is what I was battling, and trust me it’s a workout. Green, moldy algae discoloration that didn’t want to let go.

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It’s the result of kicked up ground water, stuck grass clippings from my husband’s giant lawn tractor and a lack of direct sunlight drying the rain.

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The woodchucks tunnel under this door and have ruined the surrounding lawn… but patches of loose dirt that became muddy with bleach soaked water yielded an interesting result.

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Worms.

Here a worm, there a worm. Worms everywhere … wriggling out of the ground in protest. Clearly they did not enjoy a bleach bath.

Sorry worms. It had to be done.

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*Following photo for Boo who wanted to see my pressure washing attachment. *

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Have you ever had one of those days….

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You know the ones, they start out innocently enough, swerve and then drive you straight to Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Mine was this past Saturday when I attempted to do some gardening. Pansies needed to be planted in my pots on the barn porch… but this did not go as planned.

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All I did was pick them up, I swear! The bottom fell out of one, the other split in half. I should have quit then, I really should have… but no. I decided to fire up the old weed wacker and trim.

I trimmed around my garden beds, I trimmed around the apple trees and then I trimmed around the septic tank access block.

Bad idea. Very bad.

The ground was still wet… which caused my foot to slip… which caused the weed wacker to knock the cement cover askew… which rammed a piece of rotted wood in the frame….

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And… well. It went downhill from there.

Literally and figuratively.

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I’ll spare you the odoriferous details, but trust me… they were epic. 🤢

Suffice it to say we spent the entire afternoon with our heads in the septic tank.

I do not recommend this as a relaxing weekend activity. Not one little bit.

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A new concrete tank cap was purchased and maneuvered into place (God damn! Those things are heavy.) and a new frame was built so yours truly is not able to repeat this mishap.

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I kept trying to tell my husband it could have been worse. The cover could have fallen into the tank and someone… I’m not saying who… would have had to climb in to retrieve it.

Oddly enough, he didn’t find that the least bit funny.

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💩

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