Phase Three and Counting

Wally worked on the east fence all day yesterday, but now it's all up and the fun part...the planting...can begin!

The first set of trellises goes up. The hardest part is setting the bricks for footings, takes a lot of finagling to get them, as well as the trellis, even.

By 8 pm it was all finished.  A hard day's work, but it's going to look amazing when we get all the various fragrant vines planted and trained up and over!  And it's high enough the deer won't jump it.  Hallelujah! 

And the porch is starting to come together.  We had our first dinner out there last night, but it was too dark for photos by that point.  More to come!

Deer vs. Man Phase Two

Now to the south fence which is wide open and inviting for any four-legged creature that can jump!   We decided to purchase many wooden trellises that we will line the east and south fences with.  Each trellis will have a different vine growing up and around it.  We attached the first trellis to the south fence with plastic ties, but then we had to find a way to keep the Inexpensive (aka cheap) wooden structures off of the ground which spends much of its year as a sodden mess.  So...we lay bricks and placed the bottom of the trellis on the bricks.  Piece of cake, eh?  Not so much, the ground and the fence are not level, they slope a bit.  First Wally had to cut the sod to place the bricks.

Then he had to level the bricks separately, since the ground isn't level.....

Then comes the sand that has to be placed under each brick to make them level with each other and keep the trellis more or less level.

Next comes the placing of the bricks and the fine tuning to keep all things level...

 And finally the trellis is up.  But....we forgot about one thing, the front of the trellis (the part not next to the fence) is not secure and easily knocked out of line.  So next we will have to get some stakes that we can drive into the ground (easily replaced when the constant damp rots them) and attach to the front of the trellis.  We'll have to get some stakes.....if you give a mouse a cookie......

But at least the trellis is up. The rest of the trellises will go along the fence to the right, but they will be placed flush with the fence rather than perpendicular like this one.  But the rain is back, so Phase Three is on hold.......

Deer Vs. Man

When we first moved into this place, I began formulating plans for our yard and the wonderful vegetable garden I was going to put in the raised bed. 

 I was so excited to think that we were done with the deer issue....wrong.  I think we'd only been here 3 days when I glanced out the breakfast nook window and there were 3 deer staring back at me.  Drat.....this was a problem. Our yard is fenced in with chainlink, but they are only 3' high, no problem for deer who are agile jumpers. And we are not allowed to put in higher fences.   So we began thinking about what we could do to discourage them from jumping from one yard to another.  

Phase One:

Wally decides we'll put up bird netting on the west side of the house. There are arborvitae planted there, but they have not "filled in" so they leave lots of gaps just the right size for deer to squeeze through. 

 So we secured metal rods  to the fence posts and then cut the netting to size.

Then we attached the netting to the poles and voila...we have an 8' "fence"!

We don't have to worry about the north side, the arborvitae have filled in there and made a nice impenetrable and high barrier.

And we discovered this robin's nest while we were busy working out there.  You can't see her sitting on her eggs, she's done such a superb job of putting her nest where you really can't see it well from any direction!

Now for the south and east sides....stay tuned for Phase Two.

I Joined!

I am not much of a joiner, I've never particularly liked group activities.  This issue gets in my way a lot, I didn't like sports with the exception of swimming (a singular activity!) and tennis...only one other person involved!  And I don't particularly like to play games, although I'm getting better at this!   I've avoided book clubs all this time, partly because it's a group activity and partly because I don't want to "have" to read something if there's something else I want to read first.

A few months after we moved to our new town, a woman from my church mentioned that she was part of a quilting group.  Now my experience with quilting groups has NOT been positive. The ones I tried in my old town were full of very wealthy women who owned very expensive sewing machines that basically put the quilt together for you.  Not my reality.  For some reason I agreed to go to a meeting with her "just to see".  Well it turns out it was a wonderful group of very down-to-earth women who had "just regular" sewing machines.  Their meetings are a time of sharing what they've been working on and there is  usually a demonstration of some sort about a new block pattern or tips for making all those seams meet up, always a challenge in quilting.  And they usually are individually working on some sort of quilt projects to give away. The last project was making quilts for the local pregnancy and information center and for those in need at the newborn unit of the local hospital.  

The current assignment was to make a quilt using fabrics in red/white/blue to be given to veterans who are in hospice care, the thought being that the veteran could use some cheer and warmth during his/her last days and then it would become a memento for the family left behind. What a great project, I jumped in.

I found great fabric, got it pieced and then was in a quandary.  How would I have it quilted.  In Bellingham I always had  a dear friend who is a wonderful woman as well as an amazing artist do my quilting on her long arm quilting machine.  My friend from the church here who introduced me to the quilting group suggested a friend of hers might do it, but when I called she said she was just learning how to use her long arm and didn't feel comfortable taking on the challenge. The local quilting store recommended a woman, but I emailed her and called her and got no response.  I went back to the quilting store to let them know the woman had not responded and to ask if they could recommend someone else and the woman standing next to me says, "I have a long arm machine."  I asked if she did commission work and she said, " yes".  When I told her what the project was and what it was for she said, "oh, I'll do that for no charge for such a good cause."  Providential or what!  I got the quilt back yesterday and finally got the binding sewn on. 

Drum roll please......here's the finished product which will be turned in on Monday. 

Here's some detail of the quilting pattern, I love the stars and the swirls, a perfect juxtaposition for all those squares!

I love knowing this will go to someone who has sacrificed their own agenda and freedom of choice  to serve us all!