October 18, 2004

20041018

Monday, Monday...
I didn't update yesterday, but the front yard is DONE! Yes.We had to fish a ton of rocks out of the front flower bed after we cut down the sago palm that was growing onto the sidewalk. Richard also took out the crape mystle stump that was too close the house. The rocks took me most of Saturday and Sunday. We think we hauled about 30 buckets that weighed about 50-75 pounds EACH. Each subsequent owner of the house didn't bother cleaning up the bed, they simply poured more rocks on it - I dug down about 8 inches in some spots clearing rocks!We then set up my solar fountain and planted 5 flats of petunias - 234 plants in all...give or take a few - some were dead. There were 54 plants in each of 3 flats, and 36 plants in the other 2 flats! They are bright "Hurrah" and "Bravo" red. I figured with Christmas coming, red would be good. Plus they'd liven up the yard.Across the front of the beds, Richard put picket-fence style bricks. We then planted needlepoint holly and plumbago in the front beds. It looks GREAT. We should've done this a long time ago. There are two places where there is a bit of a "hole." On the end of the house there is a water meter about knee-high. Rather than planting something in front of it that makes it unreachable (the problem we had before), I am going to plant petunias in a large terra-cotta pot and place them in front of it. The meter won't be visible from the street and can be easily reached should that be needed. We also have another "hole" where the wall protrudes in front of my office window. I'll do the same thing - a large pot of petunias will go there, too. The fountain is everything I hoped for - soft tinkling sound as the water spills from the bowls. The petunias look and smell wonderful. Now, we have to work on the backyard and painting the eaves. The house is brick so the eaves are all that need painting along with the garage door and the back wall where the kitchen window is at.The backyard doesn't need any replacement planting, simply some good mulching and trimming. Here are pictures:http://community.webshots.com/album/202443430bfqUUp I have a list of things that need to be done inside, too. Richard and I will work at a steady pace to get the house ready to sell. We intend to move into an apartment here in town and use any money from the sale of the house to start building on our land in Missouri. The dogs are enjoying all our outdoor work, both are doing well with off-leash training. Echo likes to run and play and will get Flint to chase her so she can run and run and run. She understands "no street" and when I say "ah-ah" she knows not to go there. She's learned to stay in our yard now, simply because of the "ah-ah." She runs from one side to the other, turning at the neighbors' invisible demarcation lines! Flint stays by me ANYWAY, so he's not a problem with this...unless he hears or sees something he wants to check out - then they both run like hell to it - regardless of where it is! Fortunately, this has only happened twice and there were no cars in the street! I put them on leash when I can't watch them every second. They don't like it as much since they only have 20 feet of room to play in. Work was busy, but MEB also let me know that Home Office thinks I'm working too many hours so he sent me home early. I expect this will be a regular thing now. We shall see. It would be nice as I can then get some more work done and also work on Christmas things! Anyway, this evening I shall be doing some quilting - I am involved in two Halloween online exchanges and I want to do some things for my Secret Spook and the Halloween Giftee. I've already collected a few things for them, but I want to add a little quilted thing, too.