gardening
songbird
been a while hasn't it? :)
i started out this past weekend's fine adventures in gardening by
packing the car (large broken mirror, broken cobalt colored ceramic
mug/bowl, cooler full of chocolates and rice pudding, clothes, pillows
and large jug of water, oh and books and the ever present briefcase).
ok, yes i know little of the above makes perfect sense, but in the
context of Ma, her yard and the garden things do become a bit clearer
so i will endeavor to 'splain the more obscure bits:
large broken mirror - Ma's making a Snoopy out of parts of mirrors,
she's not started yet, but wanted me to collect mirrors if i saw them
along the side of the road (or at the goodwills/garage sales/etcs.) i
think a 31" x 36" mirror will go a long ways towards her having enough.
it will be interesting to see how it goes when she gets started. the
lighthouse is going first (20ft tall is what she's planning). the light-
house is going where "Mimi" is. ("Mimi" is one of her scarecrows
that looks like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show -- she has about a dozen
of them in her yard/garden, when i arrived she was screwing and
stuffing (well vice versa in this case) six of them to a bench. friday
night one of them got stolen/taken without a trace. i think it's a
raccoon using them for a nest lining. some of the others besides
Mimi are the three riding bikes (in the garden, yes), and the indian
(angular with colored stripes), and now the six children sitting on
the bench with their hands in their laps. oh and the garden angel
with snakes crawling up her dress/pole.) i was glad to hear that she
is not going to make frogs, centipedes or a few other things. she
thinks it's getting to be a bit too much. *snicker* (like what
would give her _that_ idea!?)
broken mug - garden fodder, she can use to decorate or give a note
of color some place. she was happy, plus i get to tell how i managed
to break it (big mess).
chocolates - *mm* made for her and my step-dad, Ma likes maple
nut (i thought he liked them too, oh well, learn something new
every day :) ), i wasn't happy with the darker chocolates with
walnuts i made, but he seemed happy with them. he's terse so it's
hard to decipher his comments (over the blaring tv).
rice pudding - started with 3 cups of rice (before cooking),
heh, a bit too much so i had to take it with me so i could eat
it for breakfast.
jug of water - the well water at their place is horrible. imagine
drinking water with a heavy dose of salt, sulphur and smell of oil and
you'd come close enough. *shudder*
ok, so i did start with garden/yard things. so back to when i
arrived and we sat and talked about what had been going on and
whatever and what we would be doing that weekend.
perhaps i should backtrack a little here? more context would
prolly help. :) the house and the yard. the house is designed
and mostly built by my step-dad. it's a hexagon with two facets
having the garage and the studio (he's an artist) off them. the
outside is red cedar slats (verticle with alternating overlaps),
from the road there are few windows visible and they are small
and narrow (most of the larger area is the sliding glass doors in
the back (3 sets of them) facing the back yard gardens and the
open fields/woods.
the interior of the house i won't describe too much other than
to say the floors are all wood and the walls are eggshell white
with paintings covering almost every wall (and those propped up
in various places) and the center of the house is the large stone
fireplace (also built by my step-dad (oh and i did help too so i
get to put my mark here too :) ). well i did paint the whole place
too. looks nice. *hee* the few flaws are that it's a one person
place not really a two person place and so it's too small at times
and needs more storage.
ok, back to the yard, the yard is best described as garden in
waiting and crushed limestone (the kind that is used for driveways
except not a lot of the small stuff and fairly clean, so perhaps
it's "washed and graded for size" or something like that. ok, so
the house is red-cedar (stained redish orange) the first 20 or
more bermed feet around it is limestone (very nice contrast, no
lawn to mow :) with one berm near one set of sliding glass doors
(the bedroom) with a few trees planted on it (surrounded by rocks,
the rams skull and license plates among other strange things) the
rocks have come from all over the country. a geologist would be
lost figuring out how all those things got where they have, but hey
it's for looks and it looks pretty good to me. (and as a note to
serendipity one of the license plates has "EEP" on it :) no, that's
not where i got my *eep* from, i just noticed it this weekend so
it's a recent addition).
the yard around the limestone was supposed to be planted with white
clover. in many places it is clover but it's purple clover (much
larger) and the seed had grasses in it (bad seed, no clover) and
in other places the indigenous(sp i kno) ground cover has returned
mostly grasses and other "weeds", but since my step-dad loves
queen anne's lace it's left alone (and some thistles too *ouch*) and
in spots cultivated. so the yard other than garden also has trees
(pine, cedar, a few poplar) around it that are gradually learning how
to live in almost solid clay soil. pine trees haven't done a whole
lot, but the cedars are showing signs of getting along. to cut the
road noise down they will be a godsend in a few years. i think they'll
be planting more trees too. they need more trees along the road side
and the property line.
the rest of the yard is garden or will be. various paths, plantings
of whatevers (hollyhocks by the million are sprouting right now :) )
some strawberries, but now mostly flowers (tulips, hyacinths, lillies,
and hollyhocks (of course), plus others). there's also various benches
to sit on and a small pond and shrubberies and a swing and the two bird
baths and a strange collection of birdhouses and wind chimes on driftwood
poles, and the scarecrows and the mama chickens (plants that grow in
clusters that look like artichoke hearts sorta) and various planters
and rocks in piles and as borders along the limestone or woodchip
walkways. it's a very busy place. and then there's the herb garden
that she doesn't use the herbs from (yet she was going to plant a bunch
more just because she doesn't have to take care of them (luckily we
used 3/4 of that space for the rosebushes -- i'm still trying to figure
out how she's going to manage roses if she doesn't want to take care of
something, but hey, oh well :) ) yes, a busy place, but very much also
a good example of creative chaos in action (i'm more like creative chaos
inaction :) ).
what makes it busier is that whatever plan there might be is constantly
in a status of flux. things that start out being planted in one place will
get moved the next season as more ground gets cleared and converted to path
ways or just moved for the heck of it. the back was the main place of
action. the few things planted along the road in front were eventually
attempted to be dug up and moved elsewhere. so now there are places in
the front where odd moments of flower do happen in a whimsical way. it's
quite fun. and in the back too a flower bed that started out one way that
got converted to something else will have various side moments of life's
sheer persistence as a tulip or buttercup will sprout up in the middle of
something else. or things she planted and didn't think survived will come
up two years later. this all makes me realise that gardening can be as
much adventure as many other human doings. so when i go visit i always
walk around and look just to see what's new and what's happened and what
has happened in spite of plans and so on.
the few plots of wildflowers look to be coming back this spring. i
hope they come back close to what they were last year. fantastic. :)
so now the garden has moved to the front. her red white and blue
flower garden (accented with an uncle sam scarecrow and an aunt betsy
scarecrow sitting on a bench at one end) we planted saturday. the big
adventures there were figuring out how to space things and realising
that there was no way those plants were going to fill the area for a few
years. it will be another adventure to see how they do and if they
will thrive or if all those grasses that look so tame and subdued now
in the spring will be kept back and down enough. yes, another adventures.
for highlights i was working in a overshirt with a hood (striped so i
called it my prison garb) and i had the hood up to keep the sun off me
(beautiful weather) i hate wearing sunscreen. so while i was out there
digging holes and planting someone drives by and i look up and i see
a very nice looking redhead looking at me and as i see her i smile and
she does a big smile back (so the rest of the weekend i tell Ma to
set snares along the road for redheads) upon seeing some bearded guy
peeking out from a rather monkish hooded prison striped shirt. pleasant
surprises. *hee* and nice daydreaming material too.
where was i? oh yes, if you don't get it by now you could say that
the humor value between me and Ma is high. we often have a lot of
fun goofing off and talking about whatever and it's very easy to be
around her and mess around and if we screw up or do something clutzy
we can often riff off it and laugh about it. so while planting the
front two different people stopped and had to comment about how they
thought so highly of her yard/garden and how they always looked as
they were passing by. one lady was recruiting for her church (both
Ma and i have done enough time in the churches that it's not too likely
either of us would attend *heh*, as in we were pretty much in the
church at that moment that we wanted to be in (outdoors on a nice
day and messing in the dirt and planting flowers). she was kind enough
though and neither of us got offended by her to wish her gone. another
person stopped and wouldn't even get out of the car to talk. odd. oh
well. to each their own.
ok, so that was Saturday morning, the afternoon we took off for lunch
and had chinese and then when we got back i needed a nap (3 hours of
sleep, too much tossing and turning and some exercise then plenty of
good food, reading a book for about 30 seconds and then it was out like
a light for a few hours.
Sunday was back to the back yard and planting 24 rose bushes in ground
that can best be described as compacted. a lot of clay, so we have to
wheelbarrow sand in and mix it with peat moss and then there was again
the spacing and geometry problems. i think we did a decent job of it.
the extra humor moments were the times when i stepped into a hole of
one that we'd already planted. mud all over the place, poor rose bush
squish and both of us laughing our asses off so much that i had to sit
down. the other good laugh was when we were almost done for the day and
moving extra clumps of clay aside into an empty area and i was flinging
shovelfulls of clay and she decides to walk right in the line of fire
without me seeing her do that until i was almost ready to fling a rather
large clump. so i holler "yikesargwhatareyoudoing!" as i vainly try to
not throw a 7lb lump of clay through her. i'm sure it looked and sounded
hillarious and i had to sit and catch my breath from laughing over that
one along with letting the adrenalin rush wear off. she had to ask twice
if i was ok. i was not only ok, i was fabulous. these are the reasons
why life around Ma is worth it's weight in gold and well, um, clay.
so Sunday night and it's very sore in that i've used muscles both days
that i've not had to use in a long time, but it's the kind of hurt so
good kind of thing since i know that i've helped her out a lot. she
figured it would take us two days to plant the roses alone and here we'd
gotten both things fairly done. the hard stuff. she can finish up the
putting down the weed barriers and mulching. she can do the pruning of
dead stuff and watering and hopefully she'll listen to what i said about
not cutting off too much this first year for the flowers and so on.
yes, many more adventures here. and so many to look forward to when i
visit next time. she doesn't think i will as she works me so hard. heh.
if i tell her how much i like it and how much good it does for me she's
probably start charging me admission.
ok, enough rambles, but it's good to be back home too after being away
for a week and a half. time to get back to other projects here and
getting ready for BeachBoink and ... perhaps a little gardening or at
least pulling small weeds out of the moss patch and moving some of the
twigs aside. if i have to go to the store i might pick up a package
of dirt and plant those free seeds that someone sent me. around the
edge of the moss it might look... uhoh... :) :) :)
songbird *tweets*
Selki
> chocolates - *mm* made for her and my step-dad, Ma likes maple
>nut (i thought he liked them too, oh well, learn something new
>every day :) ), i wasn't happy with the darker chocolates with
>walnuts i made, but he seemed happy with them. he's terse so it's
>hard to decipher his comments (over the blaring tv).
Aaaagh!
> jug of water - the well water at their place is horrible. imagine
>drinking water with a heavy dose of salt, sulphur and smell of oil and
>you'd come close enough. *shudder*
Would it help to bring over a Brita filter or something like that?
Something you could fill at the well/sink and leave in the fridge?
> perhaps i should backtrack a little here? more context would
>prolly help. :) the house and the yard. the house is designed
>and mostly built by my step-dad. it's a hexagon with two facets
>[...] looks nice. *hee* the few flaws are that it's a one person
>place not really a two person place and so it's too small at times
>and needs more storage.
Sounds cool! I like small-scale architecture stuff.
>the house is red-cedar (stained redish orange) the first 20 or
>more bermed feet around it is limestone (very nice contrast, no
>lawn to mow :) with one berm near one set of sliding glass doors
>(the bedroom) with a few trees planted on it (surrounded by rocks,
>the rams skull and license plates among other strange things) the
>rocks have come from all over the country. a geologist would be
>lost figuring out how all those things got where they have, but hey
Cool too!
I really enjoyed your write-up about the garden and your mom. Glad you
had such a good time.
--
Selki
songbird
news:o%WH6.38016$FS3.4...@sjc-read.news.verio.net...
> songbird <song...@totalink.net> wrote:
> > chocolates - *mm* made for her and my step-dad, Ma likes maple
> >nut (i thought he liked them too, oh well, learn something new
> >every day :) ), i wasn't happy with the darker chocolates with
> >walnuts i made, but he seemed happy with them. he's terse so it's
> >hard to decipher his comments (over the blaring tv).
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Aaaagh!
heh, yeah, it makes reading almost impossible for me (i hate
wearing earplugs) too so either i watch things that are on or i
go to sleep. which isn't a bad choice since waking up at 6am isn't
unusual at their place. i can handle it in small doses. in the
summer, outside is the place to be. they only get into the tv
in the evenings and i can manage to watch the news and a few
sitcoms once in a while (i don't even own a tv myself so it's
like going on vacation when i visit them, a working vacation, but
a vacation :) ).
> > jug of water - the well water at their place is horrible. imagine
> >drinking water with a heavy dose of salt, sulphur and smell of oil and
> >you'd come close enough. *shudder*
>
> Would it help to bring over a Brita filter or something like that?
> Something you could fill at the well/sink and leave in the fridge?
it doesn't remove the salt (which is most of what gets to me the
most, i feel perpetually thirsty when i visit them). short of reverse
osmosis filtration or double distilling i'm not sure what would do
it. i don't like drinking milk/juice/pop as a replacement for water
either. when it's hot i want water only. Ma puts lemon in it so
she can drink it, but i don't really like that much lemon either and
then again, there's the salt. so i bring my own water and when that
runs out i choke down the tapwater.
> > perhaps i should backtrack a little here? more context would
> >prolly help. :) the house and the yard. the house is designed
> >and mostly built by my step-dad. it's a hexagon with two facets
> >[...] looks nice. *hee* the few flaws are that it's a one person
> >place not really a two person place and so it's too small at times
> >and needs more storage.
>
> Sounds cool! I like small-scale architecture stuff.
i think it comes in around 1200sqft. if it were mine i'd
have to put a few other spaces on for tinkerings, but there is
space to do that easily where the garage sits.
> >the house is red-cedar (stained redish orange) the first 20 or
> >more bermed feet around it is limestone (very nice contrast, no
> >lawn to mow :) with one berm near one set of sliding glass doors
> >(the bedroom) with a few trees planted on it (surrounded by rocks,
> >the rams skull and license plates among other strange things) the
> >rocks have come from all over the country. a geologist would be
> >lost figuring out how all those things got where they have, but hey
>
> Cool too!
>
> I really enjoyed your write-up about the garden and your mom. Glad you
> had such a good time.
thank you. some day i'll have peectures. well i do have some already
but they are not the digital sort.
songbird *peeps*
Silence
> "Selki" <se...@clark.net> wrote in message
> news:o%WH6.38016$FS3.4...@sjc-read.news.verio.net...
> > songbird <song...@totalink.net> wrote:
> > >hard to decipher his comments (over the blaring tv).
Eeek.
Worse I've ever seen was when I stayed in a B&B some 9 years ago for long
period.
The lady had the TV on from the early morning to the late evening - every
single minute of her day the TV was on and sound loud enough that she would
hear the TV from neighbouring rooms. To this day I still remember and dread
the idea.
> > >[...] looks nice. *hee* the few flaws are that it's a one person
> > >place not really a two person place and so it's too small at times
> > >and needs more storage.
>
> i think it comes in around 1200sqft.
*boggle*
Is it my poor understanding or do you mean that a 1200 sq ft house is fit
for one person only ???
If I read you right that calls for comment. Gee I have only little more
than that and I thought that one could live reasonably comfortably at four
in there : 2 adults and 2 children. Sure I'm alone there right now but when
we were two 24/7 it did not seem small at all. We even had a visitor, my
mother for a few weeks and we were not really in each other's way.
Love,
Silence.
.
Andreas Tovornik
It all depends on the layout, I think. If the place has a hearth
in the center and the shape of the house is octagonal, it's most
probably difficult to store things or place furniture. Still, 1200
square feet is a good size area. My apartment is only about 400
square feet, and I find it to be the perfect size for one person
[namely myself] to live in comfortably. Anything larger would just
fill itself with clutter that I don't need, and take more effort
to keep clean than what I have. Two people living in a space of
400 square feet is kinda claustrophobic. I did it for a year once,
and I vow to never do it again. For me to be comfortable living
with others, each person needs a minimum of 400 square feet. That
said, the cottage where I spent my summers as a child was only
400 square feet for a family of four, but we were outside all
the time and only used the place for meals and sleeping. I really
loved watching storms coming in over the lake from the covered
balcony, but the thread is drifting...
--
'dreas...tbtw#5 Taking life as she leaps into my lap and
Victoria Taxi#15 embracing her as she is seems to be the
It's not my fault! best way to go. If she's soft and likes
Sniggling since 1992 to cuddle, I won't kick her out of bed.
Kris Hasson Jones
>> Is it my poor understanding or do you mean that a 1200 sq ft house is fit
>> for one person only ???
>> If I read you right that calls for comment. Gee I have only little more
>> than that and I thought that one could live reasonably comfortably at four
>> in there : 2 adults and 2 children. Sure I'm alone there right now but when
>> we were two 24/7 it did not seem small at all. We even had a visitor, my
>> mother for a few weeks and we were not really in each other's way.
I'm pretty stunned myself. My house is just under 1100 square feet, 3
bedrooms, one bath, and four people (two adults, a teenager and a
child). The living room/dining room are open plan, and the kitchen
has a double-width opening with no doors. It's noisy and hard to get
away from each other. The bedrooms are barely large enough for a
single bed, a dresser and a desk for each of the kids; the master
bedroom has only queen size bed and two dressers and there's barely
floor space to walk around the bed. But we manage, and someday the
kids will be gone and there will be plenty of space.
--
Kris Hasson Jones sni...@pacifier.com
songbird
news:9cu9ip$he6$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
right on many counts, besides that is my guess since i don't
have the area of a hexagon formula handy. to do some rough guesses
on sizes i'd have to make it perhaps 600sq feet (without the garage).
i think the facets are 17ft on each side so i guess that area at
around 300sq feet for the main living area. (with the center fireplace
and core utility room (1/4 bath (standing shower and toilet with no sink))
stacked washer/dryer and water heater) also next to that the full bath
that isn't used (waste of space IMO for how they live, but they put it in
for resale value). there are only a few spaces that are awkward for
furniture placement and they are corners used for nicnacks or the
perpetual christmas tree. the bedroom is next to the main living area
(and still part of the main hexagon). the studio is perhaps 17x15ft so
that's pretty tiny too. for three people it's tight, for three people
with two of them with loud habits it can make the place seem way too
small. and those dimensions are outside dimensions (subtract six
inch walls and closet space and consider the studio mostly full of
furniture/paintings and that space rapidly evaporates). it's a decent
place, just a bit tight at times for three.
> My apartment is only about 400
> square feet, and I find it to be the perfect size for one person
> [namely myself] to live in comfortably. Anything larger would just
> fill itself with clutter that I don't need, and take more effort
> to keep clean than what I have. Two people living in a space of
> 400 square feet is kinda claustrophobic. I did it for a year once,
> and I vow to never do it again. For me to be comfortable living
> with others, each person needs a minimum of 400 square feet.
for me it's not just a matter of space as much as being able to
have my own space. the comment above about it being a one person
house is that my step-dad built it centered around his needs for
space (the studio, the garage), but didn't really leave any room for
anyone else to have their own space. he's tacked on a small shed
for Ma's gardening stuff, but there's no other place that really
is for her indoors so when she wants to work on something she has
to do it in the spaces in front of the sliding doors or keep moving
her stuff around.
> That
> said, the cottage where I spent my summers as a child was only
> 400 square feet for a family of four, but we were outside all
> the time and only used the place for meals and sleeping. I really
> loved watching storms coming in over the lake from the covered
> balcony, but the thread is drifting...
if you'd said something about growing a plant on a pot on your
balcony eet would be fine. :) maybe a weed growing in the corner?
in a crack in the sidewalk? :)
songbird *peep*
songbird
news:53c5ftoo8c21vgk0t...@4ax.com...
> >Silence (Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]) writes:
> >> Is it my poor understanding or do you mean that a 1200 sq ft house is fit
> >> for one person only ???
> >> If I read you right that calls for comment. Gee I have only little more
> >> than that and I thought that one could live reasonably comfortably at four
> >> in there : 2 adults and 2 children. Sure I'm alone there right now but when
> >> we were two 24/7 it did not seem small at all. We even had a visitor, my
> >> mother for a few weeks and we were not really in each other's way.
>
> I'm pretty stunned myself.
i was guesstimating. fixed estimates it comes in around 600sqft
for two people maybe even less. next time i'm there i'll ask him,
he'll know since he drew up the plans and built it.
> My house is just under 1100 square feet, 3
> bedrooms, one bath, and four people (two adults, a teenager and a
> child). The living room/dining room are open plan, and the kitchen
> has a double-width opening with no doors. It's noisy and hard to get
> away from each other. The bedrooms are barely large enough for a
> single bed, a dresser and a desk for each of the kids; the master
> bedroom has only queen size bed and two dressers and there's barely
> floor space to walk around the bed. But we manage, and someday the
> kids will be gone and there will be plenty of space.
:) yeah, i think for myself i could live in 225sqft without much
of a problem (the attic was probably smaller than that and i was happy
there for 3 years, sloped roof and all). it did help that i had house
priviledges but for the most part i didn't use them other than the
bathroom and the kitchen. where i'm at now i think it's closer to
400sqft and it's much more than i really need. when it's more people
in the mix the space needs go up because i do think it important to
have my own space or at least a workshop where i can go tinker with
various projects and i would want the other people in the household
to also have their own spaces.
songbird *peeps*
Silence
> "Kris Hasson Jones" <sni...@pacifier.com> wrote in message
> news:53c5ftoo8c21vgk0t...@4ax.com...
> > >Silence (Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]) writes:
> > >> Is it my poor understanding or do you mean that a 1200 sq ft house is fit
> > >> for one person only ???
>
> i was guesstimating. fixed estimates it comes in around 600sqft
> for two people maybe even less. next time i'm there i'll ask him,
> he'll know since he drew up the plans and built it.
Ok, there's a world of a difference between 1200 and 600.
I would too find 600 a bit cramped for two, though I shared an appartment
of 460 or so with a partner for over a year and found it to be manageable,
but we were very often out of it (Oh and we had a little cellar space in
the basement of 100 sq ft or so).
We both were very happy to move into the huge space that was our rented
home of 2000 sq ft. A palace ! Then still kept on being very happy moving
to 1350 sq ft. Now that I'm alone it really is too big for me but I'm not
taking on any lodger, no, I like my privacy too much for that. Still it's
nice to have room for visitors.
I see how 1100 for 4 would be a little cramped.
Now Andreas talked about 400 for 4 and managing, that's Ok when on a
vacation, i.e. for a short while, not really something that can last
without sparks flying all over the place.
I still fondly remember my parent's spacious 2600 sq ft for 5 ! That was
really cool. We certainly did not need more than that.
Love,
Silence.
.
Steve Daniels
Silence <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]>, said:
>I still fondly remember my parent's spacious 2600 sq ft for 5 ! That was
>really cool. We certainly did not need more than that.
How about 2500 for me. By myself.
Steve "Oh, and my dog" Daniels
Silence
Heh. Fine, enjoy it ... and I hope you don't have too much dusting / vacum
cleaning to do 'cause that's a big area to work ! But I guess the dog is in
charge ;-) ...
.