Good Morning, Glory

After Bill moved some mulch - at our last home, on Church Street - morning glories started to grow where he dumped that mulch. So I decided to move some of those new plants to various parts of the yard. I even put some wires on the utility pole out by the curb so the morning glory vines could climb it. We had morning-glory-filled trellises everywhere, too. 

Of course we had other flowers in our yard, too.....

But the morning glories were the show-stopper. Total strangers would round the corner in their car, stop and comment about our yard.

That's no stranger: That's Mike admiring the flowers with my husband Bill.in our side yard on Church Street.

And there are some more flowers - my parents, Bed and Etty, er, I mean Ed and Betty.

Yes, we were a bit crazed when it came to the whole morning glory thing. We had fun with it. 

And we're not the only ones who got into it: I mentioned, earlier in this post, that people would stop and comment about our yard. People would also ask me where I got those morning glory seeds, and I would assure them that they were normal, garden-variety (!) seeds. We even had one guy stop mid-corner to ask if he could have some of the seeds; so we gave him some. 

But here's the thing: It didn't occur to me to tell people that I put wires on the utility pole. In fact, it wasn't till some years after we moved from that Church Street home that I realized I should have told those people that - told them that those plants had help climbing that pole. Picture it: That poor man who got seeds from us goes home and plants those seeds . . . .  and they don't climb for him like they did for us. 

And one more story: The first year we had morning glories everywhere in that yard, I feared the electric company would have a problem with us growing vines up their pole. Well, I needn't have worried: The electric workers stopped by and complimented us on our garden, then asked if they could help us get the vines off the poles! God is good . . . . .

Boat Oar Trellising

When we needed trellising for my husband's berry vines, we used old boat oars. I have no idea where we got the oars; they were sitting around in the garage, so we put them to use!! 

Please note the rain barrels. There are two of them to the right in this photo, above. Bill set up a system whereby, when the first rain barrel gets full, the water pours into a second barrel! 

Growing a Patio

The very first time I saw this house, in late fall of 2004, I knew the area behind the back door would be a mud hole in the spring. So when our son Allen told us that one of his co-workers had some stone and brick to give away, I immediately thought to make a patio out of those materials. So I told Allen Yes! We would love to have the stone and brick. It would be some months before we could pluck those materials from that person's yard because we had to wait till  the weather cooperated. But eventually, we had the wherewithal to go get it, and we brought two truckloads of stone and brick home and dumped it on the yard. By then it was spring (2007), and our lawn was looking pretty good, so I wanted to get that pile out of the yard so it wouldn't kill the grass. So I went to work that very evening.

Bill tilled the area where the new patio would be, then we raked out any turf from the area. Then I started to work . . . . with a hand trowel. @ 10 hours later - a period that straddled two days - we had a new patio. 

I know, I know: The proper way to make such a thing is to dig it down to a certain depth, then add rock, then  add stone, then lay your pavers on top of that. But I didn't do any of that; I just started laying the brick and stone on top of the dirt. A pattern soon emerge as I worked.

Mid-way through this project, when I realized I wouldn't have enough rock and brick to fill the area that we'd prepped for the patio, I hastily changed the plans to include a flower bed area around the perimeter....

We eventually added a planter at the northern edge of the patio, then we added another planter, etc. The patio sort of . . . . grew out of the dirt, then the other things 'grew' around the patio!

I'm almost done now! But before I end this blog entry, I would like to share a story: 

I worked on this patio for about eight hours one day. Meanwhile, my  husband headed to the golf course - he knows better than to mess with me when I'm deep in a project like this, and I said ta ta without a backward glance. By the time Bill got home from the golf course, the patio was almost done, and the sun was setting fast. When Bill suggested I quit for the day, I insisted I get the patio done before I called it quits. So Bill turned on some lights for me, and got me some dinner, and then he turned on his truck radio so I could listen to some tunes while I finished up. The thing is, Bill tuned his radio to a Rock channel, and I am not - gasp! - a big fan of rock music. But I appreciated his efforts to make my job easier, so I left that radio on. But after about 20 minutes of Rock music, I told Bill, 'Please turn off that radio. I'm tired of rock!'

As tired as I was, though, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I was so happy with our new patio, and still am. And I am grateful to the folks who gave us the rock and brick, and grateful to those who helped get it to our property so I could play with it and make a patio. It just doesn't get any better than that . . . .

Garden Foot Stools

When I was a kid and my dear daddio would see me sitting around doing nothing-much, he'd chuckle and say to me, 'Find something constructive to do!' This project - and most of the projects I do - is a direct result of dad's dictum: I was bored one day, lazing on the patio, when I noticed how dilapidated our chiminea was getting. Then it POPPED into my head: I could use the base of that chiiminea to make a footstool So after we got a new chiminea, that's what I did: With the help of my husband Bill, that old chiminea  base was soon a handy footstool. Since then, I found another chiminea base - this time, laying in someone's yard - and I asked them if I could have it, and they said yes - another footstool was born! The chiminea we have now - seen in photo - is just about to the make-a-footstool-out-of-it stage. I almost look forward to our chimineas wearing out now. 

Hey, Daddio, See? I'm trying to do what you told me to do!!