I planted a few of these little daisy-like flowers the other day. I wanted just a few cheery plants on our deck.
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p.s. when I first spelled daisy it didn't look right so I checked dictionary.com and found the third definition for daisy kind of cute and old fashioned (not like the slang I think of when I think of slang)
–noun, plural -sies.
3. Slang. someone or something of first-rate quality: That new car is a daisy.
As soon as we set foot in our house (before it was even our house) we knew the first big project would be to remove the crazy shag carpet that covered most of the floors. Well the day has come. The carpet is coming out and in a couple weeks we will be walking on wood floors.
It's a pretty big task so we decided to hire professionals. They are starting with the rooms upstairs so we have relocated to the guest room and office area downstairs. All of the upstairs furniture has moved into the garage. Once the upstairs is done we'll do the reverse.
We've all settled into living downstairs (pets and people alike). I even bought a few peonies from the farmers market to help make the space feel a bit more home-y.
A couple days ago I grabbed a few plants from our yard (all weeds I'm pretty sure) so that I could take photos to use for design inspiration. Then I was sidetracked by an unexpected visit to the vet with my dog (she's fine now). This is the only photo I ended up with - I think it is vetch. Not sure if I'll use it for a design but I kind of like how the photo turned out with the dark corners.
When we first moved into the new house I didn't think that I would plant a vegetable garden because our yard is filled with both deer and trees. Although I'm not a seasoned gardener, I do know that shade and grazers don't make for a great harvest. But after spending a little time in the yard, I started to wonder about the potential of one existing garden bed. Last weekend I decided to go for it.
The original bed was narrow and not fenced in. So I made the bed wider, added more soil, placed a path of pavers behind the area I planned to plant and then fenced the whole thing in. On Tuesday I bought a bunch of vegetable starts from the farmers market.
I'm treating this year as an experiment. If things go well I may make the bed even wider next year. If my experiment flops I'll take down the fence and plant some shrubs that deer don't like to munch on.
We suspected that finding some good walks around our house wouldn't be hard. After a little exploring and map reading, we discovered how to reach a long network of trails from our front door barely setting a foot on a street or sidewalk. The trail network meets up with the Pacific Crest Trail, providing us with more trail than we could ever possibly walk (unless we decide to set out for Mexico or Canada one day).
My hopes, fears and emotions about the environment run so deep that I'm not quite sure what to say. Plants and animals mean the world to me. Nature is my greatest source of inspiration.
How about this... Happy Earth Day!
I was quite sad to discover this little dead bird outside. But I was also taken by how beautiful it was.
With the new house we've got a lot of big projects ahead of us. We have a house full of shag carpet and a forest service green and brown color scheme on the exterior that I'm not too wild about. Until we can tackle the biggies we have kept ourselves busy with some smaller, but still rewarding, projects.
An old planter box was left on one of the decks when we moved in. It was filled with old soil, weeds and moss. The white paint was dirty, rusty and mossy but I didn't want to throw it away. On Sunday, with a bit elbow grease, I turned it into a lovely little herb box. To me, this one small addition makes our new house feel a little more like a home.
Before leaving Portland I was able to squeeze in one more workshop at Pistils. This one was backyard beekeeping and I'm really glad I made the time to attend. We learned about the "top bar" method of beekeeping, which is a much more simple and natural approach compared to what is commonly practiced.
I left the workshop really jazzed up about starting a top bar hive. I don't think this year makes sense for me, but hopefully next year I'll be able to call myself a beekeeper (or bee guardian as the top bar people like to say). This website has a lot of great info about the top bar method if you're interested.
The top two photos show a top bar hive. At times it was hard not to be at least a little distracted during the workshop by the showy chickens that kept wandering by (bottom two photos).
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