house | dianaschnuth, Page 97

19 May 2005 gardening

Free Plants Rock.

This morning at work, I was getting my water bottle out of the break room freezer when I saw a table full of plants. Full. Of little baby plants. I wandered over to where half a dozen people were gathered around, and discovered that a woman from another department was giving away extra runners and sprouts from her garden. She had everything labeled, some with care instructions, and they all looked healthy, if a touch small.

I ended up with four pairs of plants: Snapdragons, Lavender, Morning Glory (Heavenly Blue), and Calamint. I looked them all up in the plant encyclopedia that Aaron got me, so I’ll know how not to kill them. Add those to the miniature daffodils that Sheryl got me for my birthday, and the plants I bought from Michigan Bulb with Scott ($20 off a $40 order, so we each got $20 of plants for $10—I got Lilies of the Valley, Delphiniums, and Coreopsis), and I’ve got a pretty decent showing of flowery goodness.

My plan is to plant the daffodils and the full-sun-to-partial-shade plants under the small tree in our front yard. The must-have-full-sun plants will go around the mailbox. The shady front of the house is reserved for the Lilies of the Valley, which will apparently grow most anywhere, in varying degrees of sunlight and surviving varying degrees of watering neglect. Now that’s my kind of plant.

I don’t have a good track record with outdoor plants, so I’ll keep you posted on how they do. Once I get them planted (hopefully this weekend), maybe I’ll take some pictures… although they won’t be much to look at yet.

Maybe I won’t kill all my plants this year. Maybe things will bloom and grow and things will be keen.

*crosses fingers*

P.S. – The rose I thought I’d killed by not covering it over the winter seems to be springing back. I wonder if it’ll bloom this year.

18 April 2005 house

Neighbors

Our next-door neighbor just freaked my shit out. I could have sworn I heard someone call a hello through the open door upstairs, and then I heard the chain-link fence rattling. Was someone in our back yard?

I went upstairs to the living room, closed the front door, and started peering out all the windows to try to see what I’d heard. Finally, looking out our upstairs bedroom window, I saw movement: branches of the overgrown bush that’s beginning to encroach onto our property from our neighbors’. I figured it had to be the neighbors doing some yardwork, but I had to be sure.

I put on socks and sandals (I know, I know) and headed out the back door. Sure enough, once I got into the middle of the yard, I could see him out there in his own side yard, with a tree pruner plunged into the middle of this straggly bush, cutting away. Of course, he saw me, so I had to say hello and make small talk: stupid shit like, “Decided to chop down that bush, huh? I heard noises out here and wondered what was going on…” and so forth.

Keep in mind, we’ve never introduced ourselves to our neighbors in the year-plus that we’ve lived here, so he was understandably perplexed to see me. He also wasn’t in the mood to talk—he was in the mood to kick the shit out of that bush. So, I wished him good luck and went back inside.

Nobody scoping out our backyard in broad daylight. Just the neighbor getting rid of the bush Aaron had been complaining about a couple weeks back. 🙂

11 April 2005 house

Weekend Projects

As Amy had to cancel our weekend of girlie giggles due to Grandma’s gallstones, Aaron and I opted to make use of the weekend to take care of some much-needed home improvement projects. More maintenance than improvement, actually.

First on the list: fertilize the lawn. It was very necessary. Our yard looks like poo, due to a.) the lack of proper lawn care by the previous homeowner, and b.) the giant field of weeds across the street from our house. The back yard also has vast bare patches, but that is a problem to address another day—say, in the Fall.
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23 March 2005 house, photos Fuji FinePix 2400Zoom

One Year Ago

As Erk reminded me a few days ago, Aaron and I moved into our house exactly one year ago Monday.

I still wish I’d kept the digital camera handy during the move, so I could have taken pictures of the perfectly-packed 24-foot giant U-Haul, or the inside of our empty apartment, or the all-volunteer moving crew at their complimentary Easystreet lunch.

I do have some other pictures of interest, though:

Our house, at inspection time (February 2004)