Remodel Part I

The extension rooms have been the epitome of our house (before all the work we've done since moving in). Nothing in them was broken necessarily, but they weren't particularly nice either. The carpet was stained, the walls were covered in poorly installed panelling and none of the trim matched. For all it's faults however, I love those rooms. I love that it has two large windows looking out at our apple trees, a sliding glass door into the back yard, a warm pellet stove to rotisserie yourself in front of on cold winter days, a large amount of space for hosting parties and a slanted roof that makes it feel somehow special and tucked away.

While we were away in Mexico, our house sitter burned a whole in the carpet with a misplaced heat lamp. This finally gave us the push we needed to look into new flooring. We bit the bullet and decided to go with hardwood to match the rest of the house. It costs a pretty penny more than just replacing the carpet, but this is a HIGH traffic area from the backyard and is often the site of family dinners and parties. I could ignore the falling food as long as the carpet was already terrible, but new carpet + food = crazed Robin. Our beautiful hardwood will be installed as soon as we finish....the WALLS!!

If we are going to replace the floors, I thought to myself, why not go all out and just redo the room. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Jeffry say he thought that was a good idea, and I set to work researching how to hang drywall on the Internet. The process is really pretty simple. What isn't so simple, is the fact that nothing in the room is level/straight so our attempts to hang matching seams in the drywall have been, well, a character building exercise. We were lucky in the fact that two of the four walls we have to deal with have drywall hung behind the panelling already so those just need to be taped and mudded. This was a merciful discovery that has greatly reduced the amount of work we have to do.

There were also two windows in the wall that used to belong to the outside of the house that we also had to take care of. A large portion of one of our days was spent figuring out how to remove said windows and then frame them in so we had something to nail the drywall to. Many petitions have been sent up to the saints of mud and texturing to plead with them to cover the sins we've committed while hanging the drywall. At the end of the day I must simply remember that anything is better than what we had, and we have a lot of furniture along the walls in that room anyways!

At this point we are a bit behind where I thought we'd be but not bad. It took us an evening and a day to move all the furniture into the garage and tear out the panelling. The carpet tear out has been a bit more of a pain because the interior walls of the room were build ON TOP OF the carpet. Who does that!? It has meant that tearing out the carpet in a nice clean line along the walls has taken much longer than expected. First we had to cut it as close as we could to the wall and then use pliers to tear out the rest of it. I don't know how anal we have to be about it, but I don't want the flooring guys to show up and charge us saying they had to do some clean up (we got the quote reduced by saying we'd have the room completely ready for them).

So on Sunday my mother came down to help us estimate materials and  then brainstorm how to deal with the windows. By the end of the day we were able to start hanging drywall. This process has continued through today thanks to Jeffry and some friends and family members who have come over to help him while I'm at work. By the end of today we will hopefully have all the drywall up and will be ready to start mudding, sanding, mudding, sanding, mudding.....well you get the idea. there are several layers involved. I'll be checking in over the next couple of days with updates/lessons learned as the process progresses!

I think I can, I think I can...

Although we haven't had an overabundance of hot sunny days so far this year (What's with the rain storm, it's almost June!), we have managed to avoid the late freezes that seemed to plague gardens last year. Not that things are growing with reckless abandon, but they are keeping a slow and steady pace as the days get longer and the sun spends more time out in the open. My squash patch has been soaking up that sunshine and putting it to good use.

The crooknecks have been making the most progress. All of my plants have several female flower setting.

Not to be left behind, the zucchini plants have just started forming little buds. I remember as summer came to a close last year I thought if I ever saw one again it would be too soon. Now however, I'm craving a large hearty scoop of sauteed zucchini with my dinner!

Well they still have a long way to go, and the butternut hasn't even been planted yet, but I am happy to report a healthy set of squash this year. My heart goes out to the poor victims of the Sacramento hail storm a few weeks ago. I hear many good squash plants perished in those parts as a result. Don't worry, my plants will carry on the good fight.

Herb Garden Revisited

Back in March I shared with you my new herb garden. All the plants were such small hopeful babies that barely made a blimp in the dirt. In case you forgot, here's a reminder.

Over the past couple of months, these little blips of plants have stretched their legs and filled in the space with great enthusiasm. They have also been joined by a few friends, both intentional and unintentional. I have since planted two dill and two Thia basil plants. Some intruders who snuck in there are chives and tarragon that apparently refused to die when I dug up the original herb garden.

Its really hard to get a good full picture of the herb garden since the raised beds start right behind where I'm standing to take this picture. Here is another that gives you a better idea of the different colors I was able to get out of plain old herbs.

The amazing purple flowers are from thyme. I know I need to cut them but they are just so pretty. I bet they would  make a great salad garnish. Behind that are two different kinds of sage with drastically different leaf colors, and behind those are bright green parsley. Love it. Love it. Love it.

OK, I might be basking in this a bit at this point, but a lot of times my big plans don't come together as well as I would like, and this one is just like I pictured it in my head. I have an herb garden that is beautiful to look at and provides me with a ton of herbs. I know have fresh rosemary, genovese basil, Thai basil, tarragon, thyme, marjoram, chives, dill and parsley growing right outside my door. I even have room for a few more varieties!!!

What a Difference a Week Makes

Well friends I am now back from my cruise and got a chance to briefly toodle around my yard this morning, and what I found surprised me a bit. Everything has exploded! I was concerned with the crazy storms our area had while I was gone that I would be coming home to stunted and possibly destroyed plants, but the opposite has occurred. Take a look at this giant handful of strawberries I picked this morning.

Now, strawberries don't often make it from the bed all the way into the house because they generally get eaten right off the vine. This morning however, they made a beautiful addition to my bowl of cereal. I'm not generally a big cereal eater, but with these added to the bowl it made a nice light breakfast after the past week of gluttony.  
Something else that has done quite nicely are my tomato seedlings. They spent the whole week outside and seemed to handle it just fine. My Amish Paste tomatoes seem to have done particularly well.

If your tomatoes didn't fare so well in the past week of inclement weather, feel free to take a few of these off my hands. I'm happy to share. I think I'm going to give these guys one more week in the red cups and then off to the garden with them!

Tune in tomorrow when I will hopefully share with you the wonderful progress my herb garden has made!

If Life Were Like The Movies...

...I would have been a florist. Well, actually, if life were like the movies (where everyone is beautiful, has plenty of money and plenty of spare time) there are a lot of professions I'd love, but florist is toward the top of the list. To feed my inner florist, I can often be seen tip toeing around my yard filling a basket full of clippings of this and that. I never know what I'm going to do with it until I am inside with my bundle of blooms and an assortment of bottles, but that is all part of the creative process.

Grandpa George plants and Chives

I have discovered over the years that I have a certain aesthetic when it comes to flower arranging that comes partly from personal taste and partly from the reality of using garden blooms from my own yard.


Roses and Thyme

First, I like mini-bouquets. This is because in addition to being adorable, they allow you to stretch the number of blooms you have (which can vary wildly between seasons). Instead of having one large lush bouquet on your kitchen table you can have five little ones scattered about your house, bringing little bursts of joy in unexpected places.

Carnation and Mini Roses

Second, I like tightly bunched short flower arrangements. Packing a large number of blooms into a tight space makes them pop and look far more lush and put together than a loose bouquet. Short arrangements are also easier to make because long straight stems are often not what you find when collecting garden blooms. I only go for sparse if I have a few particularly beautiful roses and an equally beautiful/interesting vase. In that case, I clip them at different heights and sort of let them lounge in their vessel.



Roses and Mint

Third, I like to incorporate non-traditional plants. There are plenty of things growing in most peoples yards that they wouldn't think of as traditional choices such as herbs, horsetail reed and vining flowers. These work great to add a new texture to your arrangement or to simply act as filler around some beautiful flowers.


Roses and Lavender

Lastly, and I suppose this is more of a recommendation, interesting containers are a good way to shake things up. When working from your garden you are going to be using the same types of flowers a lot, so different containers can add variety and pose fun new challenges. Thrift stores are a great place to look and don't just think traditional vases, old soup cans, canning jars, and carafes make great "vases" too!

Grandpa George plants with Jasmine buds

Rouge Tomato

As many of you know I have been pretty sick since coming back from Mexico, only leaving my couch to heat up some tea or refill my water cup. Today, however, I was finally able to return to work. As I made my first weary steps out the front door toward my car, some weeds in the herb garden caught my eye. Being unable to help myself I stopped to pull a few of them, only to find this little guy hiding amongst them.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the plant above, it is a tomato. Now before you call me silly for planting a tomato in the midst of my herb garden (which would totally destroy the herb garden theme) you should know, this was never meant to happen. I racked my brain trying to figure out how this ridiculously healthy looking tomato plant (it puts my intentional seedlings to shame) popped up in this location. I envisioned trixy little hobbitses running around my garden at night scattering seeds, or an equally trixy little Jeffry planting a single seed on purpose because it broke his heart to see it go to waste.

After much speculation, this is what I think happened. When I was putting the herb garden together, I stole some dirt out of my raised beds because it needed just a touch more in the elevated areas. A tomato must have fallen in the raised bed last year and decomposed, leaving its seeds behind in the soil. This seed was then transferred to my herb garden along with the soil, where it has been carefully watered and pampered along with the herbs. I have no idea what kind of tomato it will be. I think I shall try to transplant it to the tomato section of our yard and wait to be surprised!

Garden in Bloom

I've been meaning to post some pictures up all week, but getting ready for our Mexico trip has left me running out the door late in the morning and not finishing with stuff I need to get done until well after dark! Then last night of all things it was hailing when I got home! Luckily everything seems to have come through pretty unscathed so enjoy some lovely photos of Asbury Farms in bloom.

One seedling tray sprouting away.





Strawberry blossoms waiting to transform into plump red fruits.

Green strawberries ready to ripen.

Tomatillo flowers.

I love how tomatillos look like little paper lanterns hanging from the plant.





I can't believe our citrus is already blooming again!

Sweet apple blossoms outside our bedroom window. The bees
are in heaven.

English lavender.

Our wild tangled mess of jasmine. The sent that greets my nose each
morning when I go out to water.

The first set of blooms on our double delights are especially red.
By far my favorite flower in our garden.

This ground cover has endured  a winter's worth of
 attacks from Baby Chick and somehow still lives.