Well House Window

Bryon made me a set of star shutters for the front of the well house. We had seen a pair in Little Mountain Unlimited down the street, but Bryon said he could make them! How bout that! A few days later he came home from work and made them in about an hour. I was so excited! He is such a handy person to have around :0) I really liked them and have since added a metal star to go over the top of the window. The window here was originally put in by my Uncle Steffen when he was a young boy. It is the same window still today, and has a blown glass look with ripples in it. I put a before picture at the top of the page, and an after picture under it. Looks great!

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

This tree has been behind this barn for many years. It has always looked pretty when it blooms....kind of a purple lavender color. We had a dog pen sitting there behind the tree, but have since moved it since Eb died. Eb was a dog that passed through three owners, but ultimately dying of congestive heart failure. First my late Uncle Steffen owned him (a couple of years), then my late Grandma Lake and Pape Joe owned him (the longest amount of time), then Bryon and I owned him for a short time. I have a photo of him to upload. He was a big lab, and was very strong all the way up until the day he died. He liked to go for walks and would pull me behind him. We had to put him to sleep on the day of my Bridal Luncheon...it was so sad that Bryon and I both cried for him even though we knew he was old and probably wouldn't live long. Our little dog Bella did get to meet him and liked to play with him too.

The tree mentioned above has since died too, and no longer sits here at the base of this barn. I am glad I took a picture of it when I did because now it has been pulled up and burned. Termites had taken it over, and pulled the whole thing down to the ground. I am not sure how much longer it will be before the barn is behind it, considering it was one of the first structures on the property some 100+ years ago. It is sad to see the old things go. The things that I remember as far back as I can remeber. I know that we will put something new it it's place that one day will be old too, and our children or our children's children will look at it and think about when we first put it in.

A Long Rainy Weekend

We had such a busy weekend! We had about twenty guest over at the house for Sunday lunch, so therfore spent the whole weekend cleaning and doing yard maintenance. I don't mind the yard maintanance, but HATE house work! I would much rather be outside, but I guess every now and then I have to break down and clean the dishes and the floor. YUCK! BUT, this weekend it was dreary, cold, and drizzling rain almost all day on Saturady so I guess I was lucky my husband did the yard work part :0) One of the biggest projects of the weekend was building planter boxes for my vegetable garden. Bryon is so good to me sometimes, and also he just loves to build! He built two boxes about two and a half feet high by six feet long. I will be able to transplant my seedling into the area, and maintain it throughout the summer at an elevated height, and near the water source. Yay! A garden is a lot of work! I know this because both sets of grandparents have always had one. My grandparents that used to live in thehouse had a large garden across the back of the yard. After my grandfather died, it became too much for my grandmother, and she had a crew come out and level the ground and plant grass to make it part of the yard again. She was also sharing the garden with my Aunt Janis (her daughter) and Uncle Donald who live right through the woods from our house. They were unable to have a good garden at their house because the deer are so overpopulated in that area. I think now they have picked out a spot that is working for them in their yard. I am so glad Grandma did have the area leveled and re-seeded with grass, because we would have had to. Not many people have a garden of that size in their yard. Papa Joe used to pump water up from the pond to irrigate the garden. There was PVC pipe all the way from the pond to the house on top of the ground. The soil is so very rocky, I don't think Papa could have buried the line on his own. He would have had to rent some equipment I would think. I will look and see if I can find a picture of that to post. Not sure I will be able to though.....

Back to my vegetable planters though...here are some pictures of the construction, and me being silly. We have bought the soil, but have not put it all in yet. Also, I have nt picked out the color, but know it will be a shade of red. Bryon is about to have a FIT for something red in the yard...

Red Bud Tree

Some blooms still on the tree....

The transplant.......

We have a very old red bud tree in the back yard that was there when my grandparents bought the house. It bloomed this year mid March until the end of March. All of the purple blooms were gone by the first of April. The Earliest bloomer in the yard! (besides the Camellia bushes, and the false pear tree). This week I transplanted some wisteria vines onto the tree, and thought that would be a pretty sight after the red bud blooms fell off.There used to be a huge wisteria vine, or maybe it was a tree I can't quite remember, growing outside of our kitchen window when my grandparents owned the home. Unfortunately for us, and the tree, it was placed directly over the septic tank! My papa Joe cut down the wisteria, but now, years later,sprouts are growing all over the area and have clogged the septic tank once again. Funny how something so beautiful can be such a nuisance in another way! I dug and dug at those roots. The tap root went down very deep, and the thread-like roots coming from the main were long and are the source of the septic problem I think. I removed two large sections of sprouts and transplanted those. My miniature dachshund was very excited with all of the digging and commotion going on, as she is a "rooter" by nature. I hope that the wisteria lives, and I feel sure that it will. It seems in our yard that if we wanted it to die, it never would but seeing that we want it to live, it probably won't make it. I plan to prune it well so that it won't totally take over the tree like I know it could.Hopefully I made a good decision to transplant, and will not look back on this moment and regret it! But, then again, how could you regret planting a flower! (I really shouldn't ask those types of questions :0).

The Well House

When we bought our house in November 2007, the well house was not really a point of interest in the yard. The building, or should I say shed, was a small two room area that stored a lot of junk. The wood was unpainted and rotten in many areas. After living in our home almost a year, we began "working" on the well house. One day my husband came home from a USC baseball game and found me painting the front side of the building and said "why are you doing that the whole side is rotten". We began replacing boards, and then decided to add shakes to two sides. We added a half wall under the open breeze way area and then placed a piece of vinyl lattice at the top for my Clematis to climb up! We would also like to add a white vinyl fence on the right side, blocking in the back yard on that side. We have a small miniature dachshund and need to fence in an area for her to be able to run around and play. So many ideas, so ambitious! We are still far from being finished with our little project turned big project, and have so many ideas that we have added in since beginning the project a month ago. We have built vegetable platforms across the back of the building, and my husband wants to add an irrigation system that would be fed from a rain barrel. I will let you know how that goes when we get there :0) We still have the back side of the building to fix up, add shakes to, add Plexiglas windowpanes, and paint white. Also, the roof needs to be painted silver/grey because of the rust that has set in. I will upload a picture of what the structure currently looks like. We have so far to go, but we have come so far at the same time! Next time I will update you on the flowers (my favorite part)!