Brother projects

Chris came over and we accomplished so much:
A compost sifter.

Planting of the contorted quince and three blueberries.

Framework for the Belgian fence. The trees will be planted and then the branches trained to grow along the bamboo supports. I can now just show people this picture to give them a visual rather than ineffectively throwing my hands into a "Y" shape and then an "X" shape.

The rain garden in Ryan and Emilia's yard is officially in operation. Now I just need it to rain so I can see how it does.

Saved from the faulty shoe rack.

Here is my "before" picture of the unfortunate shoe rack I've been living with for ten (!) years. The large space between the two bars mean that the shoes always fall through. Happily, Linda, Matt's mom gave me an Ikea gift card for Christmas and I purchased a much better option.

The famous Ikea assembly.

A good helper.

More of an onlooker than a helper.

The finished product.

It holds eight pairs of shoes.

If I want to put my laundry basket in the closet, I can't access the bottom drawer easily, but I rarely need the shoes in the bottom drawer.

What could it be?

A landing pad for a very small helicopter?

Nope, it's for my fancy leather bag.

It's a rain guard!

I had an old shower curtain and I cut it to fit.

Shed! Accessable!

Chris has delayed coming over for a day due to rain. Although it eventually stopped. What to do? Clean out this shed! This project came about because I needed to find some hooks so I could finish a different project in the house and I couldn't find anything in the shed in this state.

Calm and peace has been restored and I found the hooks I was looking for.

Apple Trees have arrived!

The Home Orchard Society's spring scion exchange was today, which means that I got to pick up the newly grafted trees I ordered last October! They only had 10, the Lubsk Queen and the Devonshire Quarrenden (I think) were not available. I will have to find replacements for them. I also picked up my order from One Green World at Concentrates (they have a Mobile Plant Pickup that delivers there for only $5.00) If you squint and look at the lower right, you can see my contorted quince and if you squint and look to the left you can see my blueberries: Rubel & Brunswick.

Though I did a lot of research about grafted trees, I did not find out until today that I can't plant the trees until next February. Phooey. Chris is coming over tomorrow to do just that. I'll have to find other things for us to do. Now I have to give them a lot of attention so they actually grow.

Spring View of the Garden

I like to take establishing shots of the gardens throughout the season. These are handy to refer to when I feel like nothing is really happening. Right now it does seem like nothing is happening because it is still winter, but I will refer back to these once things get going.

Backyard: from the compost corner.
On the right we will soon have fruit tree and bushes.
There are peas planted in one of the raised beds,
and strawberries and asparagus in the other two.

Backyard, from gate entrance.
On the left will be the Belgian fence with the apple trees.
Another view of the peas/strawberries/asparagus beds.

Backyard: from the back corner.
Directly in the foreground is the cherry tree, one of the columnar apples is on the left.

Leo's Yard: from the break in the fence.
The green thing is a collard plant that made it through the winter.

Emilia's Yard: from the back corner.
This shows the rain garden. The milk jugs are marking native plants I planted.

Emilia's Yard: side yard.
This will be trellised squash (hopefully)

Emilia's Yard: from the edge of the side yard.
On the right, that thing that looks like a pile of garbage will be an asparagus bed.

Bloody Poetry

(poster from: http://www.nwctc.org/bp)

Matt and I attended yet another great performance at the Northwest Classical Theatre Company. The performance of Bloody Poetry featured electric acting, especially by Andy Copeland (playing Percy Bysshe Shelley) and Jamie M. Rea (playing Mary Shelley), with Butch Flowers playing a very funny judgmental interloper. The story itself was not very enjoyable as the Romantic poets Shelley and Byron were, well, assholes and thus not enjoyable to spend time with.

The play did offer a nice insight into the relationship between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, as well as Claire Clairemont and Lord Byron. It so happens that the summer the four of them spent on Lake Geneva was the summer Mary Shelley began to write Frankenstein, which also happens to be the March selection for the Kenton Library Book Club.

It was also nice to see Dainichia Noreault, who played Claire Clairemont. We last saw her in a fabulous production of Assassins, where she was a memorable Squeaky Fromme.