As Above, So Below and Somewhere Inbetween

I was worried when we looked at this house to buy, as it's very near a small (but apparently growing) airport. I'd have to say in general we haven't been too preoccupied by overhead phenomenom although the picture makes the point that things do fly by frequently. That's nice when the "thing" in question is a bat or a blue heron and less so when it's a jumbo jet liner. I find the noise of the occassional helicopter to be more disruptive than the airplanes but then I find the motorcycles that scramble mufflerlessly up the road even more annoying. But it's always going to be something...

Like the earthquake that hit us yesterday. I was at work photographing $12,000 worth of Tiffany flatware and the wall started shimmying. Not to mention my knees felt wonky and there was a truly odd sound. I thought a delivery truck had backed into the auction house but of course it turned out to be the earthquake. Is anyone else interested in the acceleration of incidents of odd weather? It seems every time we turn around, there's a tsunami or a category 5 hurricane or a flood or a drought...

Garden Highlights: Seeing Red

I may be impatient to have my garden up and running nad looking like it's always been there (got the first year garden blues...) but there are some tasty moments occurring and they seem to favor red. This "Fireball" hibiscus was a birthday present from Bob and it's dynamite. This was right after a really heavy thunderstorm; the drops of rain are still visible. Some disrespectful beetle has gnawed a few of the leaves, but you can't have everything go well. Hell, this is gardening afterall!
Another showstopper was a birthday gift from my sister Beatrice. She got this Mandevilla (spelled wrong? It sounds like some Pontiac from the 1960's) at a Stop and Shop on clearance for (get this) $2. And this plant just keeps blooming and blooming...

Island Life

This is so cool. Bob and I discussed just how badly we needed an island in the kitchen and I spied this odd cabinet at work at the auction house. It was super cheap and oddly sized; it was only 22 inches high and no one seemed to know exactly what it was (labelled as "Dog Bed?" complete with question mark.) I got it for $12 (and it's made from actual wood! No fiber board!) and Bob added a bottom layer to make it counter height. He also put in a shelf and added doors. Even better was the fact that he ghad a slab of stone that a friend gave to him... and it fit perfectly. (What are the chances of THAT happening?) Here's a view of the other side. It's already been a big hit; we can't begin to imagine what we did before the island. It changed traffic flow in the kitchen in a good way; serves to keep me and Jules out of the way when Bob is cooking... only kidding!

So Bob will be preturbed; he wanted to repaint it before I posted this, but I was eager to share the results. I think it looks just great.

Life's Dark and Seamy Side- Problems in Paradise

So there is a downside to all that fine gardening we've been doing. The inside of our abode has been a bit abandoned and there are selected areas that have been, well... ignored and neglected. I suppose we do keep repeating the mantra, "We can't do EVERYTHING" and there is truth in this somewhat comforting thought.
Many sagacious friends have advised that a moving box left unopened often never gets opened. I guess that's why we have run around physically opening boxes and then leaving them where they were. At least they're not all closed up and the contents are free to sort themselves out and find a new home on a shelf or in a closet. We have books aplenty...
Unfortunately, that wierd household law of physics seems to apply here with a vengence: despite moving from a far smaller house with way less storage space (where our things fit comfortably) into more commodious digs, our possessions seem to have multiplied exponentially in transit. Go figure!
Here's another choice corner.

This blog posting is my attempt to remind myself that there will be plenty of stuff to attend to once the snows fly. Soon enough!

A New Member of the Family

I seem to have a birthday that keeps on giving. My mother gave mea check for my birthday, and she'd be proud of all the things I managed to procure (on sale!!) with her generous gift. The two most wonderful were a door for my studio (yay! We have yet to install it, but it's here). And this delightful Dr. Suess-esque Blue Atlas Cedar. He has quite the personality!
I have always played with an area of the garden thta I call the Blue Border, in which I try to include only (or mostly) plants with blue foliage or blue flowers. This little guy will provide a good basic skeleton for the Blue Border. Bob keeps warning me that this tree will get BIG but I assume that's probably not anytime soon.
All in all, I received all kinds of great gifts- mostly plants but art making items as well!!- and I've been thoroughly enjoying them. Thanks to generous family and friends the garden and our place is stating to look almost resonable.

Just Like the Great Wall of China!

Well, sort of like the Great Wall of China. I mean, you can see the Great Wall from outer space but WE can see our new garden bed from upstairs! We have this really kickin' aerial view...
But of course, all good gardening stories have their vast dilemmas. In my case, I got a wonderful variety of interesting plants from family 'n' friends for my recent birthday. I promptly de-sodded and began digging in this really long straight bed along the side of the path that we take down to Bob's studio. It's the major axis in the back yard; our version of the Champs Elysees (another allusion to a historical, monumental site!) So I'm happily arranging plants in their containers when it dawns on me that in order to plant this one where I really want to see it, I need to move that one waaaaaaaaaaaaay back over in the older section. And then it strikes me how much like making art gardening is. Sometimes, it's all a very roundabout route to get results. I believe I heard someone refer to this need to see something in a specific place as "the genius of place". And that is really true. I'll lie awake all night if I don't put that plant exactly where I imagined it, even if I have to move three or four other things to put it there.
And that's not to mention that I need to move a section of fence in order to plant. The new bed is (inconvieniently!) bisected by our fence and we all know my recent history of fences and eyeballs. So I'm going back into my studio instead!!!

New and Improved Projects

This side of the house is in for a treat. First, we're going to remove that scabby plywood and see what sort of evil lurks underneath. Then we're going to tackle the chimney (or in this case, the lack of chimney. The former owner removed the apparently perfectly functional chimney and interior fireplace for reasons unknown...). The way I figure it, if my parents constructed a chimney of heroic proportions (along with an entire house!) then Bob and I can certainly make a chimney and hook up the woodstove and provide some additional heat this winter. We have to first excavate and make a new footing for the chimney. We'd better hurry up and do that as every time Bob and I discuss the foundation, he maintains we have to dig deeper. It used to be three feet; now it's four. Soon, it will be a twenty foot hole filled with boulders and mortar and it will take us the rest of our lives and never be deep enough...
Just look at the roofline and see another piece of the project. Where the lack of chimney meets the roof, there is a serious languague problem: peeled back flashing meets partially hacked shingles and dissected wood siding. A mini mess!

Underfoot lingers another less onerous affair; in fact, I think it could be fun. We're going to replace the wooden deck with a stone terrace. (Have you noticed that no one refers to terraces as "patios" anymore? Remember patios?) We sit outside pretty often and deserve a nice place to view the garden from. It's relatively flat by the house and it shouldn't be too hard to make a usuable terrace. Famous last words!
See the below photo to reference that there are actual weeds and grass growing up through the boards.

Hey! Even if we don't get to this this year- or even next!- it's still a nice place to sit outside.

The Middle Aged Business Man Sings Second Childhood Blues and Then Some

I was outside on Sanday morning, having a whale of a time "personalizing" our garden by adding those quirky touchs that make it ours, as seen in the above photo. I planted a prickly pear cactus (salvaged from our previous garden) in a cement container perched on a tall metal pedastal. Nice! You don't think to meet a cactus eye to eye. The air was warm, the morning was flawless...
And suddenly our neighbor to the southwest did what he sometimes does: he introduced the entire community to his idea of bliss. The stereo- apparently hooked up outdoors- was cranked and we were awash in "L.A. Woman". It dawned on me as the music careened through several different Doors greatest hits, that this wasn't even Jim Morrison and company but some Doors cover band. I can only imagine our neighbor flailing away, swinging some invisible microphone, lariat-style over his head as he plangently crowed about loving him two times. Heaven help us. I sure hope he was wearing leather pants This is surely mid-life crisis writ large.
I don't know why these individuals who wish to share their great good taste never treat our ears to Brahms or Prokofiev or Bartok and turn the neighborhood into a mini-Tanglewood. Typically, their selections run to songs and bands popular when we were teenagers, and I for one have had enough of The Doors. The morning ran straight down hill, however, as The Doors were followed by The Allman Brothers.
Despite the aural assault, I completed my garden chores and was quite happy with the results. I am considering hooking up a feed to my studio stereo and blasting my idea of auditory nirvana  Shostakovich string quartets followed by Alban Berg piano miniatures with a goodly dose of, yes, Kurt Cobain. Rock on, little brother!