Backyard Progress

Sometimes when I feel like I have not made significant progress on a particular project, I like looking back in order to gain perspective. For instance, I feel like I've been neglecting the backyard for a while. When I look outside I see a large patch of bald dirt, untamed hills, and a long list of to-dos. I rattle off the tasks that I would like to get going, but am always stumped on what should take priority or how to work out the little details. Also, there's the issue of time, but that's another story. 

Looking through my photo archives, I am reminded of what the place looked like when we moved in four and a half years ago (ack!).

Here is what the north side of the house looked like prior to us moving in. The yard was actually in much better shape than when we originally looked at the house. During our initial viewing, there was quite a bit of debris in the backyard including a broken skateboard, and this side portion was completely blocked off with a giant pile of tumbleweeds. The house later went into foreclosure and the bank who seized the property had things tidied up. So, in 2009 the yard was a clean slate.

2009

Cheesecloth Ghosties - You know, because Halloween is approaching.

A few Halloweens ago, I decided I wanted to try out those fancy cheesecloth ghosts I kept seeing during this time of year. I was also on a kick of only having homemade decorations, so these fit well in my grand scheme. 

Not ready to commit to anything overly large (we have to store these things somewhere), I grabbed some water balloons we had on hand and readied them as a form on which to drape the cheesecloth.

Don't worry, Will. This cup is often used as a drinking vessel, too. The balloon just fit so nicely on its smooth rim.

I think most of these crafts recommend liquid starch, but I had nothing on hand and opted for regular Elmer's glue. It took a while for the cloth to dry and wasn't really giving me the stiffness for which I was hoping.

We just so happened to be working on the Cozy this day, so I took my forms out to the garage and used up the leftover resin. The resin worked wonders and allows me to not have to be extra gentle when packing them away for the year.

You Wanna Map? You Gotta Map!

At an undisclosed time ago, I purchased a rather large map of the United States as a Christmas gift for Ced. The idea behind owning a large map of the U.S. was to map out trips we'd take in our homebuilt airplane (this was before the Cozy came into the picture), mark locations we'd visit, and generally have a visual reference for places we plan to go. When it arrived, (we were still apartment-living) I attempted tacking it up on the wall with thumbtacks, but the darn thing was so large and awkward, I gave up for fear of kinking the laminate printout. Besides, poking a zillions holes in the wall to hold it up did not sound so appealing, especially when we'd have to take it down shortly to move.

So, it sat rolled up until we moved into the house. Then it sat rolled up in a corner of the house until we figured out which room it should go in. Finally, the office was the winning location, but just tacking it to the wall wouldn't work anymore. (We've been attempting to move beyond thumbtacking posters to the wall and actually preparing wall hangings with a more "polished" approach.)

After measuring and remeasuring, I went out into the single bay where we keep excess supplies. Ced had purchased some material a while ago to surface his workbench/CNC table. This bit of leftover material fit the bill and, after clearing that it wasn't reserved for another use, was cut down to fit the selected wall.

A trip to the local Home Depot was necessary to pick up a gallon of glue and a spreader. We both had a little bit of experience pushing around goop (a.k.a. tile/floor adhesive, grout, resin, whatever), so we "prepped" the area, let some glue glug out, and got to work coating the surface of the stiff material in the adhesive.

I had purchased a roll of corkboard online in preparation for this project. We rolled it onto the tacky surface, then found as many heavy objects as we could to weight down the corkboard to ensure a good adhesion to the porous material below. (We had just gotten in a large shipment of clay and sand (a tale for another time), which helped provide quite a bit of weight.)

We let the glue dry for a week or so before removing the weight and trimming the corkboard. After that, it was a matter of measuring, drilling, and mounting the sheet to the desired wall.

Once up, out came the map and we were finally able to display it.

Now, all we need are some straight pins, some travel plans, and time to finish our airplane!

Plans Diverted

We did have plans. 

We were in for a few days packed with visiting, good food, and, possibly, a little relaxation. We checked the news and scoffed at the weatherman's predictions. He's been making promises lately that he just can't keep. So we prepped and packed, unsuspecting and unaware. We woke at 3:00 a.m. to road closures and a winter white world.   

I love snow. But on days where we have schedules to keep, schedules we've planned and booked months in advance, I'm not a huge fan.

Regardless of my feelings about snow, the weather happened and our plans had to be diverted.



We canceled and postponed and fretted.

After the decisions were made, we tried to make the best of the situation.

Wing Drilling

Yesterday, Ced and I moved the wings inside in order to drill them full of properly aligned holes.

Looking at these large structures helps put in perspective all the steps it took to get to this stage. It also helps put in perspective the lack of attention I've given to properly updating our progress. Ack!

Bake-a-thon

Back in August my place of employment was preparing to celebrate its 30th year anniversary of being in business. I let myself get caught up in the excitement of it all and decided to contribute to the festivities by baking cookies. A lot of cookies. And not just any cookies, but cookies in the shape of the company logo. 

To get started, I needed a custom cookie cutter. Sure, sure, I could have used a paper template and traced the custom shape out with a knife for each and every cookie, but I opted for something that would make the process a bit more efficient. I attempted using materials found around the house to make the cutter before discovering and purchasing this kit.

With icing bags, food coloring, and cookie cutter in hand, I did a test run two weekends prior to the celebratory event. Following the lead of the queen of cookies at Bake at 350 (I stumbled on that site a little while ago and have been itching for an excuse to make fancy cookies), I baked and iced one batch of cookies. They didn't look the best, but I figured my shaky hands just needed more practice.

The weekend before the event I started baking and decorating. . .

. . . and baking and decorating. . .

. . . and baking and decorating. You get the idea.

All during the three days of hunching over platefuls of cookies I kept questioning whether or not I was being ridiculous for trying to make 400+ cookies in just a few short days. I had arguments with myself to prepare for the questioning I was sure to receive upon bringing in container after container of cookies.

I figured the one question that would be asked the most would be "Why?" And my answer? I wanted to see if I could.

Sometimes you (maybe it's just me, who knows) just need to set a ridiculous goal and push yourself to try to accomplish it. Most of the time when I set lofty goals I never reach them. I believe I fell a few dozen batches short of my 400+ mark, but I'm still proud of making and decorating 300+ cookies over the course of a few days.

On the day of the event I packed all the thawed cookies in one big tupperware container and brought them down to one of the food distribution points. As people began filling seats and grabbing desserts, I kept hearing compliments about the look and taste of the cookies.

I think the highest compliment received was that the cookies put a special touch on the event. I'm glad they were received well enough that none of the cookies came back home. It was certainly fun learning how to manipulate a new medium as well as creating a mass quantity of hand made somethings.

Where have you been?

Well, you know, I've been around. Summer is in full swing and the days have reached their max length and are slowly shrinking again. This only means the pace to accomplish has quickened as time is visibly passing. I know it's been a while since I've talked about the Cozy or, well, much else. Regardless of my lack of updates here, know that we have been busy.

First and foremost, we've been making decent progress on the Cozy. Remember, we picked it up in the state below in July 2010.

Two years (gah, years??) later it's looking a lot like an airplane. The canard is complete and stored hanging on the garage wall. The right wing is now complete and nesting in the front room of the house, and the wing tips are glassed. This weekend we hope to bond the cores together for the left wing so we can knock out one of the last major part builds in the upcoming weeks. If only work-work didn't get in the way. Oi.

I'm pretty sure Ced has worked every weekend for a long, long time. He's enjoying himself, but it doesn't leave much room for Cozy prep or any other personal work. His preoccupation with figuring out enginerdy problems for work has allowed me to have a lot of weekend time to do outdoor updates, at least when I'm not working out designerdy problems for work. 

Earlier this year I decided I really wanted to put in flower bed liner in the front yard. Installing this bit of plastic, I told myself, will help prevent grass creep into the flower beds and keep mulch out of the grass.  After a bit of internal debating about how to stake the liner in the ground, I convinced myself pointing the metal stakes towards the lawn was a good decision.

It wasn't.

I ended up piercing the pvc line that feeds the drip system in the front yard. Once the pipe was fixed, we had to swap all the drip heads since dirt had gotten into the system and clogged everything. I'm still fighting clogged drip heads and it's been a few months since the repair. When the liner was installed in the other part of the front yard, I opted to forgo use of stakes.

When not out in the yard I've tried to do work for me. This box did hold a little still life I was drawing. Mr. D has a knack for locating things I want left alone and plopping on them. 

But he's so cute I forgive him.

Ced did buy a fun toy to play with while he runs simulations and such.

Meet The Replicator. "The MakerBot Replicator™ is the ultimate personal 3D printer, with single or dual extrusion (2-color printing)--and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG!"

It's a nifty tool to have on hand.

There are big plans for this guy.

We were able to catch the Transit of Venus last month. Ced set up his telescope at the back door and propped a whiteboard up in order to see Venus cross the sun. 

Amelia helps me unpack our box of organic fruits and veggies when we get them. How sweet.

In order to properly celebrate a milestone achievement at work, Ced bought a fancy grill. I haven't actually used it, but Ced is very much a grill master now. I just deal with sides and let him run with the meat.

During our vacation earlier this month, I gave these chairs a facelift. I've yet to finish the matching table simply because sanding everything down is such a pain. Maybe tomorrow?

In between coats on the chairs, I took apart the outdoor light fixtures (eight total), washed the glass, and repainted the metal bits. 

I tell myself it gave the house a subtle facelift. Now to scrape off the peeling white trim around doors and windows and resurface and paint it all.

I think this is Rev C of my office curtains. I found black-out fabric that eliminates the pattern bleed-through issue. Once again, I took apart the curtains, swapped out the lining fabric with the black-out fabric, and reassembled them. I think I'm finally done. With that bit of accomplishment I'm now moving on to other naked windows of the house. The first ones to tackle are the skinny back windows in the kitchen/living area. The afternoon sun is pretty vicious and that black-out fabric does wonders for keeping us from being scorched. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, but I think they also help keep the room a few degrees cooler. (Pictures to come of those shades at a later date).

Comparison of doubled thin lining fabric vs blackout lining fabric. BIG difference!

This past December Ced went crazy and bought a kiln.

I'm pretty excited about it, but we're both terrified to hook it up to the gas line for fear of a firey ball of doom. Despite being a wuss about running the kiln, I got back on the wheel to start getting a feel for throwing again. The problem I keep running into is throwing something and not getting back to it before it completely dries out. Different climate, so different rules to play by. I'm also trying out a new clay type, so I'm feeling doubly rusty. 

My main goal for this summer was to plant as much as possible to 1) help keep me motivated to work out in the yard and 2) help keep the weeds at bay. A lot of the bulbs, shrubs, whatnot I planted last year have established fairly well and have grown a decent amount. At the end of the last planting season I was getting a bit demotivated for various reasons, but this season has taught me that I was being silly.

Last year I planted these little russian sage runners at the top of the hill and only got about 65% of the desired geotextile fabric laid down.

I learned my lesson about not putting down the fabric since I had to fight back all the weeds in order to finish this job this year. The little sage plants are filling in nicely, too. If only I can finish the next two tiers of the hill, then I'd feel accomplished.

At the beginning of the veggie growing season I had to beat back the weeds around the raised beds. Now that the fabric is in place I hope to eliminate that step next year. I'm slowly but surely learning that putting in the hard work to do something properly the first time will save loads of time the next go around. Geez.

With a lot of volunteer squash plants, some volunteer potato and tomato plants, and some purchased tomato plants, I ran out of room in my two raised beds. We had planned to put a third one in anyway, so I cleared the area and we both took time pick axing the ground (not pictured). Right now the pit is serving as our compost heap, but I do hope to build another box after the season is up to get things moving along for next year.

The garden is starting to produce veggies that are ready for harvest. We ate a little tomato off the vine today. It was quite delicious. We also found out that the volunteer squash came from an acorn squash, so I'll be stocked up for the winter on these. Mmm.

In early spring I told myself to finish planting along this fence line. It took a lot of pick axing and shoveling to dig the holes, but I finally got everything placed. Lots of lilies, spirea, roses, and other various flowering bulbs were planted.

This isn't a great photo since the volunteer sunflowers I transplanted cover up everything else, but I'm liking the look of all the greenery. 

With things along the sides of the house coming together, I'm slowly getting prepped for developing the backyard. There's not a lot to see in this picture other than a sad transplanted iris, some young daylilies and that buried pot of weigela. The plants are now out of their pots and in the ground, getting established. I made a decision to not put together a chicken wire basket around the root balls before planting. I'm not sure why other than I was being lazy (after pick axing) and just wanted to plant the darn things.

I'm now regretting that decision because we have a persistent neighbor who tends to tunnel throughout the yard, dig up my gladiola bulbs and scratched the top off a newly planted daylily. He's super cute, but I'd rather admire his cuteness from afar. 

When I need some calm scenery, especially after glaring at pesky ground squirrels, I like that I can now take a walk around the yard and see some of the following sights.

I think anyone who is a gardener has the same desire to create a peaceful area around them they can go to after a stressful day. 

So, that's pretty much what we've been up to. Keeping busy on various projects and tossing in some relaxation here and there. 

How about you?