How Does My Garden Grow Chapter 2

Yesterday we pruned our lovely apple tree which had not seen pruning shears for many years. A fruit tree(s) would be a wonderful addition to our front yard but as you can see from the picture we don't have a lot of room in our front yard or the back. Friday I went to the garden center with great plans to buy a peach tree. Instead I walked away with a nectarine, apricot, plum and peach tree. Yep, just one tree. It has four branches grafted onto the main trunk. I was so excited to plant it that evening but had to wait for Joe to help me. You might be wondering why the logs are on the lawn. I want to move the sidewalk so by putting the logs out it helps me to visualize how the new sidewalk can look.
The planters in the front of the house were full of weeds which I have removed most of. I planted pansy's along with onions, cabbage, parsley, cilantro, oregano and English lavender. It is so fun to see their bright cheery flowers. They make me happy.

I planted 4 kinds of lettuce and peas on the east side our house. They are up!

Taking out the old galvanized metal swing was a big job. Joe has a reciprocating saw which made the job easier. As you can see in the two pictures we still have some of the pipe to remove and plenty of clean up.
So begins chapter two of How Does My Garden Grow for 2010. I love seeing my garden grow and eat the yummy food!

One tree down and one to go!

Our yard was very messy and had not been taken care of for a long time when we moved in. We spent a lot of time just cleaning up all the junk laying around and raking lots and lots of leaves this spring. Can you see the big topless Blue Spruce in the back corner? Well....

We got a bid to remove this tree and the large walnut tree. They wanted $900. I know you think we are crazy for cutting the trees down. The problem is the pine tree did not provide any shade and takes a large part of the back yard. The walnut tree is not in very good health. And the branches spread over the house and invite unwanted guest. (More on that later). We want to put in several fruit trees along the back fence. So Joe started cutting a little at a time with the bottom branches.

You can see that he can now stand up and cut the branches out one at a time.

I thought about keeping our Northern Palm Tree. . . . for about a minute.

All gone! Now we get to haul out all the branches.This is a little over half the branches. I thought it would take 5 trailer loads. Boy, Joe sure can pack things in!

A shot of the back yard this morning. Much better.

Happy Valentines Day

For Valentines Days this year I decided to do something a little different this year. Joe has early meetings on Sunday and doesn't have time for breakfast most of the time. I made a breakfast casserole that I cooked in my CrockPot all night. For dinner I made a special dinner for supper. Joe also did something a little different. He usually gives me flowers. This year he got me a plant, which was great because I wanted a Spider Plant. Plants are a great way to filter the air inside your home.

Christmas and Thanksgiving

Our Christmas tree in our new home. We went to Alice's for Christmas morning. What fun to watch the little boys who are so excited. Later in the afternoon we met at our home and Doug and Jessica come up to join us for Christmas dinner. I made Cafe Rio salads. We had a great day.

The boys love Uncle Carl. He knows how to play the games on Wii.

Thanksgiving in at our home in Idaho. We had most of my family for Thanksgiving. It was great. You can see how many people, I think we had 39 people. What fun to get together. We celebrated Christmas and Grandma's famous cookies in the evening. We had tons to eat.

The end of a wonderful day.

Remembering

Today, February 4th is always a day for happy and sad memories. It has been six years since Heidi passed away and I miss her every day. I am so grateful for having been able to be her Mom. She taught me so much. She loved life and making everyone happy. One of her first words she learned when she was a baby was "Happy".

In 2 months this is what has happened with our house.

We want to raise the roof on the front porch and also replace the windows with more original looking windows and remove the wood in the arches above the windows. There was glass in all the front windows above the main windows. I hope to learn how to do stained glass so that we can use in the windows.

You can see the interesting brick work done on the fireplace and the windows. We will paint them with an accent color.
The wall in basement. The below picture is the stairway going down to the basement. It is hard to see but it is almost straight down, about like going down a ladder.

Somebody must have had a good time, "One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, take one down" or in this picture, add one . Those will be going "goodbye".
Lovely pink bathroom with Freddie resting in front of the door. Yep, I get to have Freddie.


I didn't ever think I would be so excited for a washer and dryer but after 2 1/2 years using the public washers in the condo I can say I was very happy to have a washer and dryer again.


I love the look of the windows. Just put in what every size you can. It doesn't matter if they match or not.

Now this is one bold room with the lovely flooring and bold quilt. Makes for a very eye catching room.



It has been two months since we were able to move in. We are working with a architect to help us decide the best design for the house. It has so many small rooms and a weird hallway that takes up a lot of space. We want to open up the entry so you can see the stairway, which will need some updating. It has a door that opens right to the stairs and is a very tight space.
Stay tuned for updates as we begin the remodel.

Our new home

We were able to move into our new home the 4th of December. We tried to bribe the tenant to get him to move. It worked the second time which was cheaper that going though the whole eviction process. I had two guys come and move his stuff out and the next three days they took out the old carpet (see pictures below of the house) and other junk left behind. I spent the time starting to clean just the rooms we needed to live in, kitchen, living room, bedroom and a bathroom. I don't think it had been really cleaned for years. I still have several rooms to clean. We want to do some remodeling. We have been working on a floor plan that will make the most of the space with the least amount of work.The above two pictures are the kitchen

There are two bathrooms and they are both bubble gum pink! Yek

These two pictures are showing the room that will become the living room. If you look close you can see how wonderful the carpet looks.The three above pictures are the hallway which is shaped like a U. When we took out the carpet there was two more layers of flooring and then a gummy tar paper which we could not remove. I found some $1.00 a yard fabric and stapled it down. It is so much better.



My sewing and craft room. It is upstairs and has wonderful hardwood floors. I am really excited about putting my sewing machine in front of the window and having time to sew.