Monday, March 14, 2011

Fence

I don't know why I worked 4 days on this and took a single picture, but there's the fence.  Well, the southeast corner of the fence anyway.  It's 8 foot wooden posts from the orchard to the end, past the cedar tree.  And metal poles down the side and across the back.  The posts are all straight, I don't know why a couple look like they are leaning here.  

We have strung lights all the way from the redbud at the rock wall to the cedar tree in the front and I ziptied more lights in the cedar tree itself, hanging down from the branches.  I plan to keep adding to those as I find more on sale.  LED lights are not cheap!  We want to replace them all with LED solar lights to keep from having to run power cords out there.

There's a little gate in the back and for now, the big gate is in front.  We plan to build something to replace it at some point. 

Matt picked up more solar lights today and the kids are going to tuck them in and around the yard tomorrow.

Here are a couple shots from what Matt took the other night, the lights add quite a bit of...um...light.  Well, the kids can run around after dark is what I am getting at.  hahaha.  That will be great when it's so hot all day, they can still get outside and get a little playtime in, plus I am thinking if it's lit well enough, I can weed, water and so on.  Don't worry, I won't mow!  



Ah, the party lights that usually hang in Poppy.  They are across the front gate at the moment. 

I really, really love having the whole yard fenced in.  I feel cozy and much safer and more like 'okay, now we have a defined space to tame.'  Before, it was in 3 sections and there were gates to get through to do anything.  It felt very disjointed and this is much better.

Hrm, okay that one post really IS leaning!  I need to fix that. 
Here is the same stretch of fence from above with the transplanted quince along the inside.  It had spread and was getting too intimate with the house foundation.  It's field stone along that wall, a couple of the roots had started growing into the cracks!  Eep!  We moved 4 of them, I hope they live as it's a bad time to move things like that.  But, it was them or the foundation.  There are still several out there that we decided were not too close for right now, so maybe we can move them this fall.

And here is one of the jessamine vines on the arbor by the gate.  We moved it because I had the distinct feeling it was going to collapse the roof, that stuff is CRAZY how fast it grows.  That was a $2.88 2 foot long vine 3 years ago.  I have clipped it back at least once a year since then and it still was up into the eaves of the house.

That's it, I have not taken many pictures.  Other highlights would have included a burning pile of trimmed-back limbs and roses, Matt cursing at the mower until it worked.  Me, mowing down privet that had gotten too big to pull up, me sneaking weed killer into the shopping cart and then putting little squirts on said privet stumps and then hiding it.  I don't normally use poisons, but privet is evil and not much else will work on it. 

Me digging tiger lilies up from along the septic line. (I have many, many clumps of these available for the taking if anyone wants any)  Me raking the whole hillside and then burning a pile of black walnuts that was roughly the size of the van.  Me running around thinking I was being shot at with bottle rockets when the walnuts began exploding in the fire. 

Tomorrow, I am taking the day off and will just clean the house.  It will be so nice to dust and put away stacks of fresh towels after digging and raking for the last 5 days!