More yardwork

The weather was amazing this weekend and so we spent most of the weekend working on the yard. After cleaning up the brush from last week's work, we turned over the main garden plot. We were both amazed at how beautiful the soil is. Not a single rock! We were thinking of raised beds, but will probably just fence off an area for the vegetable garden. We used our mighty little Mantis tiller again. We created a planting bed along the garage wall where the woodpile had been. It is a really sunny spot and will work well to create a hot house eventually. We also created a new planter along the back side of the house, hoping to grow something that will block some of the summer sun from baking our brick wall. Finally, we installed two rain barrels that will help us water all the things we are hoping to grow.

Watering the strawberry plants (Spring has come so fast, we don't have the hose out yet).

New planter bed adjacent to rear of house...and our little tiller.

We decided to just reuse some existing blocks for now. We might put a deck out here eventually.

Ziggy supervised.

Putting in the last blocks.

We capped the wall with bricks from around the yard.

Rain barrel installed. We are hooking a soaker hose to water the bed.

Our little starters -- organic seedlings in homemade planter pots made from newspaper and toilet paper rolls.

Let the Garden Begin

Our little quarter acre will soon be known as the Montross Farm! The warm weather and longer days are allowing us to work on turning some grass into gardens. This week we planted currants and strawberries. Our strawberry patch is going to surround the fig trees. The previous owner had a rather ugly 3X6 foot cement block planter near the fig trees. We removed it and made one big planting bed. More room to grow and less grass to mow! We put sticks around the strawberry plants...to keep the dogs from sleeping on them until we can fence them in. The warm weather has gotten the dogs seeking cool patches of soil. We also moved our wood pile to the rear property line. We used about a 1/2 cord this past winter...if you could really call it winter.

Our little Mantis rototiller. It does a pretty good job. 

TIMBERRRRRR!

It was a beautiful sunny warm spring day. We decided to get out the chain saw and cut down the dead japanese maple in the back yard..and do a little trimming. We have a huge rhododendron that had some big dead branches. Rhodo wood is really hard...

She is smiling because the tree didn't hit anything on the way down!

All gone (except for the clean up).

Planning projects

We  have several projects that we want to get done.
1. Remodel upstairs bathroom -- rusty shower stall needs a bit of updating
2. New windows -- original windows with aluminum storms are way too drafty
3. Remove aluminum siding

Yesterday our contractor... who I really like... measured our windows to get us a price on replacement windows. We both would have liked new windows -- wood, but realize that most people prefer no maintenance windows so we will most likely go with vinyl interiors/low maintenance.

The current aluminum siding covers everything on the upper level -- bottom level brick and stone. No trim is showing. Today I took a can opener (chisel) and pried up a piece of the aluminum. We were hoping for stucco, but it appears to be asbestos/cement shingle. It looks to be in pristine shape and a creamy white color.

I wouldn't want to get into the cost of removing the asbestos. I think the solution is to remove the aluminum, repair any wood trim and then paint the upper story.

We already started with installing a window with brown exterior. Had we known the original color was white, we may have chosen something else. In the long run, I think a color might look better anyway.

Now the big decision of whether to remove the aluminum ourselves, or hire someone to do it. The house is small and it is only the second story. Hopefully we can get a good price and let someone else do it. I would rather stick to the landscaping!