Got some stuff done in the garden the past few days, so I thought I would share some pics. First, the front of the house:
As you can see, the oak (strong like bull) and the maple are doing well, and the other oak which is not pictured is similarly very healthy. The ferns needed to be cleaned out and watered, so I am hoping the rain tonight handles that, and all of the hostas on the stairs are going to be split up and planted tomorrow.
Moving to the back, first, the deck repairs, which could not have come at a worse time with the whole Lily thing (that’s why we have credit cards), but all the bad wood is gone, the railing which was falling in has been replaced, and for the first time since I bought this house and fell through the god damned deck 8 hours after buying it I feel safe on the back porch. It is structurally sound, as you can see, because it can support the weight of your less than trim host and his sausage roll of a dog.
Now the whole back yard:
On the left, both apple trees are doing splendidly- the blooms were beautiful, and I expect in a couple years they will be fruiting nicely. The chestnut tree went the way of the dodo, and I don’t think I am going to replace it because I think that is where I want the wildflower garden for the hummingbirds and butterflies. IN the back corner, you can not see them, but the blueberries and blackberries are growing well and again I expect fruit maybe next year. In the back right, we have several rows of peas and sugar snap peas. When they are done I will put in some beans. The rest of the gardens hold a variety of tomatoes, peppers, etc., and one bed is for watermelon. The three tiered planter has garlic and onions, and near the fall will be beets.
I managed to salvage all the soil and some of the beds from the old place, and I covered that with that fabric crap and then topped it with a layer of soil. Here is Thurston “helping.”
If you notice in between the beds and the deck the grass looks like total hell, but that is ok because I need to get about ten tons of top soil to level out the damned yard anyway. There’s a guy that will do it for 200 bucks, so I imagine next month when I get paid again that will happen. I’m starting to collect flagstones at the creek and intend to make a walkway to the back gate. Now for the best part- PEEPS:
Here is a shitty picture of mom on a wire screaming bloody murder because I had the nerve to get within 20 feet of her babies:
Fortunately, I had the brains to get some video of her hollering at me, so maybe you all can tell me what she is:
Probably just a swallow or something but I don’t care I am happy she has decided to make this her home and I hope she and her kids come back every year.
Corner Stone
Sounds like someone needs to lay off the Trump story revelations.
terraformer
Damn fine abode you got there, sir.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Looking good, John
Anne Laurie
One of the few things I know about birds is that swallows have long, split “swallow tails” (why the name is used for certain formal menswear).
So, probably some kinda finch, which I think would include the native (not-English) sparrows?
The worst part of your lot looks better than the best part of ours… except that all our lilacs are now in bloom, and so are the purple irises. And the two cherry trees we planted 20+ years ago are much more impressive than your aspiring trees, of course!
Sab
Looks lovely. Glad you fixed the deck.
I have fewer dogs, so I have peas not pees in my garden (I never get to pedant a college prof. I am sure I have my own offsetting typos.)
pat
My guess: House finch. From the first pic. My computer’s speakers are not working.
WaterGirl
Cole, what is that purple bush/shrub in front of your house? It’s just gorgeous! Me want.
Sab
What is that purple bush in front of the porch?
TaMara (HFG)
I got blueberries my first year, so you might, too. Everything looks great.
Shell
Love those little bird bald noggins.
********
Miss that so much; having to sell the house and move into an apartment- losing my garden.
Rob
@pat: I agree, House Finch. The video sound confirmed it.
(Back to lurking)
Anne Laurie
@WaterGirl:
I’m thinking rhododendron — they’re all in bloom around here right now, too.
Rhodies like a fairly acid soil, and they seem to prefer clay to sand. It drove my gardening friend from Michigan crazy that she could never nurture hers to real health, while the otherwise neglected house we bought 25 years ago had a two-story version of Cole’s bush flourishing amid the backyard weeds. Here’s a link that might be helpful, since it’s for a Chicago arboretum.
Rob
I love the bush in the front yard and the picture of Thurston helping.
pat
I tried to import the first pic into my photo program to enhance it and it is impossible. If someone can hear the chattering, they should be able to ID it.
Second wild guess is robin.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
It’s clearly a bald eagle.
opiejeanne
In the photo of the back yard from the porch I thought “Has John acquired a pet duck of some kind?” but then I realized it’s the back end of the sausage-roll dog and his tail.
Your yard is looking good, as is your house.
And those are not swallows.
satby
@WaterGirl: @Sab: looks like a rhododendron.
Yarrow
Looks good, John. Thurston is so funny! He really looks like he thinks he’s helping. How is Miss Lily?
opiejeanne
@pat: I can’t see its belly but I don’t think that’s a robin. Ours don’t sound like that at all, at least on the Left Coast.
Mary G
When I saw that third picture, I thought you’d gotten a duck or a goose, then I realized it must be Thurston’s tail. Did Lily have chemo today and is she still better every Sunday? I will put a smidge in the PayPal on Wednesday when my Social Security is deposited.
Thurston looks happy, fat, and sassy, just as he should.
ETA: @opiejeanne: You beat me.
schrodingers_cat
Wow, Thurston has become Tunchesque.
raven
Nice. After almost 20 years of no even locking the front door a family of what my tenant calls “tweakers” moved in across the street. Granny lives there and apparently there is a young man who is paralyzed in the house but I’ve never seen him. They asked my wife if I had cables and when I went our they needed a jump too. I obliged and then talked with them a bit about there car and, unlike most rednecks, they don’t know diddly shit abut cars. One of them came over again today but I just said fuck it and didn’t answer the door. I hate it but I see no future in getting involved but I did order my first security system today!
Sab
@satby: That is what I thought, but maybe something with smaller blossoms?
Another Scott
@satby: It looks like an azalea to me (they’re both in the rhododendron family, so we’re all right ;-). Notoriously showy. Ours just passed their peak a week or so ago, so the timing is about right for John.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Anne Laurie: Probably rhododendron but also could be azalea. Color is more suggestive of the former. Neither will grow in my yard because of a fungus in the soil. They grow well when they are placed near pines, which generate acidic soil, and although people use them as foundation plants they typically need soil conditioning because foundations tend to be alkaline.
Cermet
Its a dinosaur but I suspect, not a T-Rex; however, don’t take my word but rather do try putting a clear plastic cup of water out in a cup holder outside late at night when the ceiling is low, and there is mist; do this when there are no lights and check if you happen to see shock waves on the water surface followed by a menacing low thud. Remember, if you don’t move, it can’t see you (ok, that part I know was wrong.)
Yarrow
@raven: Sounds like you better find the keys to the front door!
Cheryl Rofer
I thought it was a robin from the picture, but the sound is definitely not robin. Might be house finch, but not much there to go by.
Jeffro
Nice looking place, John – you should be really proud of all that hard work!
Also because the last thread is dead:
– my favorite muppets were the two old guys who sat in the balcony and heckled all the other muppets. Not sure what that says about me as a 10-year old.
– looking forward to DEADPOOL 2 just as soon as possible! (Special thanks to whichever director or writer or whatever made Cable the villain – I made big bucks two weeks ago selling off his first appearance in the comics ;)
raven
@Yarrow: We keep it on a nail on the porch but, like I always tell the boss lady, none of that shit will keep anyone out who really wants in.
WereBear
I love the plants and the porch. Place seems to have good bones.
Yarrow
@raven: Yeah, but you don’t have to make it super easy. I used to live in a place where no one locked doors but now I don’t live in a place like that. I lock the doors when I’m home.
Gin & Tonic
That shrub is almost certainly a variety of rhododendron known as PJM. More azalea-like than most rhododendrons.
chris
I’m going with azalea. They’re in full bloom here now.
As Tamara said, blueberries fruit very young. I used to sell about a dozen varieties and some of them would fruit in the pots at less than a year old. Keep an eye out, birds love blueberries.
Fair Economist
@Jeffro:
Statler and Waldorf were the best! Almost all my friends at college agreed (I’d liked them when I was younger as well).
Anne Laurie
@Jeffro:
Statler & Waldorf (after the fancy hotels).
raven
@Yarrow: I actually just moved my office from upstairs to a downstairs bedroom and I’m right near the front door. That will help.
Roger Moore
Definitely not a swallow, since that’s not a swallow nest. Swallows nest either in cavities (like an old woodpecker’s nest or a traditional bird house) or build mud nests near an overhang. They definitely don’t build cup nests like that one.
Anne Laurie
@Yarrow:
Thurston’s starting to look like a pug! Cole’s gonna have to pay the neighbor’s kids, or one of his college boys, to drag the little bastid on a forced exercise march every day, now that Cole’s too busy trying to keep Lily well-nourished.
As far as the “being helpful” part… There was an Incident, while we were on vacation last summer, in a pocket of the Berkshires where our cell carrier reception was spotty. Got back to our motel after dinner, and I couldn’t find my phone; Spousal Unit has a flip phone (he’s… frugal like that) & it didn’t work in the room. We were about to drive back to the restaurant (half-hour round trip) when I went to retrieve my purse off the bed and discovered that our own personal Thurston (a puppy-mill rescue papillon named Sydney) had been crouched couchant like that, guarding my phone, during the entire contretemps… It was a valuable thing, obviously! He just wanted to be helpful, protecting it like that!
Doug R
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):
Yup. Clearly
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2206063349411455&set=pb.100000234333196.-2207520000.1526952916.&type=3&theater
geg6
And you were yelling at me that Lovey was fat! They are definitely brother and sister. And they aren’t fat. They are big boned. Even though they are very little doggies.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist: The Statler in Downtown LA became the Hilton, then the Wilshire Grand, then torn down to build the new Wilshire Grand Building(the one with the curved top and changing logos).
JanieM
@Anne Laurie: Not all swallows have the long split tails, though barn swallows do. My only “pets” are the cliff swallows that build mud nests high up under the eaves of my house and the barn, and they don’t have swallow tails.
I don’t know what John’s bird is either, but as Roger Moore says, that’s not a swallow’s nest. Nor have I ever seen a swallow resting on a wire. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swallow resting anywhere. All they do is swoop around catching bugs. They also have a distinctive kind of throaty chatter that I can hear through the weeks when they’re raising the babies, and an alarm call that they sound when circling to threaten me if I dare to stick my head out the window to get a look at the nests. Once the eggs are hatched, if I stick my head out — even though it’s maybe 15 feet from the nest — every damned cliff swallow in the county shows up to tell me to get lost.
GregS
The adult looks like a house finch.
Lee
Here is one tree tip I wish I had paid more attention to with all my trees.
Prune on a regular basis (usually in the winter). Keep the ‘base’ of the tree limbs always moving up. Keep the main trunk from splitting too much (so thin out & trim ‘up’). You can never really start too early. So this winter take the lower branches off those new trees.
I’ve got 3 very large red oaks in the front of my house. I paid attention to those. They are now peaking over the top of my 2 story house and they sit about 5 feet lower than the house. Everyone comments how good they look.
I’ve got a white ash in the back I didn’t pay as much attention to and it’s now in a bad way. I’m probably going to have to prune a lot this fall that it’s going to not look very good for a while.
Interesting story about pruning:
At my work campus about 6 years ago they upgraded all the security cameras and really trimmed up all the live oaks in the parking lot to clear the lines of sight. They trimmed them up so much they looked like palm trees (i.e. ridiculous).
Now they are VERY tall full live oaks and actually look much better and provide significantly more shade in the summer.
(huh… that was a much longer comment about tree pruning than I would have ever thought I would have posted)
Jeffro
@Anne Laurie: oh, OUCH!
So…Does it count if I only tear down others in my mind and never say a word?
Sab
@Lee: My ters are young I am doing that. Also tje bushes.
gammyjill
The house and the yard look fantastic.
Nicole
Gorgeous! Thanks for the photos.
Lymie
Gosh, it looks like robins but the adult image is hard to see.
rikyrah
Your home looks beautiful, Cole.
Love the little babies and their fierce mother?
justawriter
Not a robin by the call. I think this seals it for the house finch … https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Finch/sounds … (call, not song). It would be identical if Cole had an expensive parabolic microphone.
joel hanes
@pat:
House finch is what we concluded from the eggs/nest pic from more than a week ago.
SectionH
@Gin & Tonic: Doesn’t look like a PJM to me – those flowers were much paler than the shrub in the picture. At least the ones I had. John’s also has a much denser growth habit. (The rest of the color in the photo looks pretty natural, not oversaturated, so I’m taking the relative color as fairly good.)
Whatever it is, nice color. Maybe trim it to encourage the lower limbs to come out more.*
Your place is really coming along, John. I’m impressed that you’re keeping on with it all. We’ve been stalled on so many projects for damn years now. May finally be seeing the dam leaking. Which is probably not the best mettphor, considering that a great deal of the holdup has involved a giant building-wide (15 story, 50+ condos) replumbing project.
I have only one “constructive” comment, “Why do you still have those sweet saplings in your front yard staked?” They are obviously strong young trees now. They’ll be better off growing as they want to. Oh, and take off the stupid rubber things at their bases too. Unless you’ve got some weird rodents I’ve never heard of or something. Good little trees benefit, once they’re well rooted, from moving naturally. First ref when I googled here.
*Sorry, I know, everyone’s a gardener from long distance…
(yes edited)
middlelee
According to google it’s a finch. Sound and nest.
Aleta
@Cermet: This should be a national advisory. Stray dinosaurs could ruin everything we’ve been working for.
Aleta
Betty Carter – Open The Door – 1979 Live
MomSaysI*mHandsome
For now — but best be ready to handle them, with hatchet, axe, and saw.
central texas
I particularly like the matched set of gibbets at the porch stairs. Could we start a poll to see who should be the first pair to try them out? Have you thought about tumbrils?