August 2020

We planted this about three years ago down by the spring house. This is the first year it bloomed. Only three blooms that I could see. Hopefully, more next year.
Meadow petunias in our native garden. This plant is starting to spread itself everywhere!
Our native garden was planted in 2017 – three years ago. It is between the house and the garage. This is the way we walk to enter the house via the back door.
We added a row of blocks on either side of the driveway so no one drives off the edge where the conduits are. The other areas are a slope of rocks.
Well it didn’t take long between getting the new driveway and having a gully washer of a storm – about four inches in two hours. Many homes and businesses in the downtown area were ruined. The newspaper reported about $3 million of damage. We just had a bunch of rock moved downstream. We’ve moved some of it. Billy Young stopped by a few nights ago and said they’d move the rest when it dried up. Hmmm, that could be months from now if we continue in this wet weather pattern.
Our second batch of sauerkraut. We have our second batch of sour pickles bubbling on the kitchen counter now.
We’ve been busy with our harvest. Planning to can more tomato sauce this weekend using a mix of our tomatoes and those from the farmers market. We’ve had cool weather this week – 58 degrees last night – so I don’t know how well they will continue to do.
These are elderberries. It’s hard to tell how big they are. These are smaller than a pea. They can be half this size. The rain has kept them plump. I’m making immune boosting syrup with them.

New Driveway

A different crew came on Sunday to erect the frame for the concrete.

Summer Heat

This is a photo from earlier this month of the kitchen garden. We had fairly moderate weather until last week when we hit 90 degrees. Yesterday was a scorcher.
Sometimes Darcy needs a little quiet time too.
Smokey and I have been meeting up on the back deck every morning for some loving. I’m allergic so I just stroke him with my one hand and try not to let him rub up against my legs. I largely fail at that. I always wash afterward.
Orange and purple coneflowers
Smokey has not trained Darcy like Frida has. He usually runs away from her whereas Frida will stand her ground.

More about the driveway soon!

Down with the brick walls

I took photos of our dismantling of the brick walls that line our driveway. Moffat paving said they should get to us in October so we are waiting to hear from them. They are contracted to take down the walls but I wanted to save some of the brick for a walkway in the kitchen garden. My neighbor, Nancy, says bricks are 50 cents each at Habitat for Humanity. It seemed worth saving what we could even though it is a messy job dealing with the mortar dust.

There was a good six inch gap between this wall and the asphalt. Dave used the tractor to nudge the brick forward so we could see what we can salvage. A lot of it has mortar that is too difficult to remove with our hand tool method. The original mortar is crumbling, but the mortar previous owners used for repairs was much newer and stronger.

The brick on this side started falling on their own. We were able to do the rest with hand tools.

Moffet doesn’t do brick. They will replace with a wall of block in a brown and grey. Just a wall, no pillars. I think pillars are a bit pretentious anyway. I expect we will fill in with plantings.

I invited Nancy to take any bricks she could chisel off. She got a shovel full on the tractor and Dave drove it up their steep driveway. She gave me some of their chinese chestnuts. Above are the roasted nuts. I’d never had them before. They are somewhat starchy in texture and not really much taste. I ate a few and put the rest in the freezer.

While thinking of chinese chestnuts, I have to set the record straight. A couple years ago I posted here that I though we had found a beech tree hidden among the privet we were chopping down. Well, come to find out, it was a chinese chestnut. Surely planted there from nuts gathered by squirrels at Nancy’s place across the road. Oh, well. I’d prefer the beech but won’t complain about a volunteer plant that provides food.