Back in Business

Well, almost.

All the topsoil is in now. We've been given the go-ahead to put the veggie garden back together, and that's just what we started to do tonight! We've got it level, and tomorrow we'll put the dirt back in. After that? Plants!

During the whole waiting period, I finished a kind of fun/creative project for the garden: these plant markers.

 Thrift store spoons + hand-drawn labels on paper + mod podge = these heavy duty garden markers that happen to be quite cute. Maybe a little TOO cute for me.

State of the Yard Address

A lot of my hopes for the yard have been dashed lately. I know that in the end this will all be for the best, since we'll be getting a topsoil layer to help make our rocky terrain more useful for growing stuff. But right now...

THIS is my poor garden. It had to be moved out of the way when the yard was being excavated. Hopefully it will be put back together by the end of the week, at which point we can FINALLY plant these guys:

The garden wasn't the only casualty of the landscaping work. Our poor little trees were subjected to some stress as well. Look at the oil left behind by the machines!

There is some good news, though--while inspecting the fruit trees, we found that some of them had fruit beginning to grow:

 Sadly, many of the little fruits fell off thanks to the machinery, but some still remain and now we are looking forward to some fruit from our own yard!

Oh, and that rock area we created? Gone, too. Well, I guess it's all to make way for bigger and better things, so it will be worth it. Right now, my back yard is quite desolate. At least all of the weeds are gone!

Side Yard Plan

I've been really, really lacking any kind of motivation to think about or work on the yard. And, since the whole project is kind of floating in limbo at the moment what with landlords and landscapers still working out what will be done with the property, it's no wonder I have no desire to commit to any ideas right this second. Yeah, I'm feeling beaten down. BUT...I have still been daydreaming, and lately it's been about the side yard.

This is the only area that it seems we'll get to have much control over what happens, so I've developed a plan for how I want to do it. Yes, I know that at any moment plans could change and it could be covered in grass or something, but I really have high hopes for what it can become...through OUR hard work and planning.

So here is a basic plan I've drawn up for the side yard area:

I will give more details about the different areas I've drawn:

A: Flower beds, most likely full of wildflowers, some ornamental rocks/pavers, and perhaps some nice ground cover or moss:

B: A dirt or gravel path, possibly including stepping stones:

C: A "lookout" or relaxation area with a bench and possible firepit:

D: Bark, with intermittent shrubs/bushes:

E: Vegetable garden area. Will have a raised garden bed, planters, a gravel path, and some kind of fence (picket?)

F: Rocks, to make the bark borders a little less boring...maybe with some decorative grasses?:

Even the best-laid plans...

...can turn into a pile of meaningless trash in an instant.

What we started.

Over the weekend, we learned that we won't be able to landscape the yard the way we had wanted to. The city has a nice list of rules regarding how yard landscaping must look, and even though not all homes in our neighborhood adhere to these rules exactly, we have been targeted by the city because we've lived here a year and by law must have a landscaped front yard by the end of the month. And they are telling us how to do it.

The front yard must be mostly vegetation...what they really mean is they want grass. Oh, grass...just what I was hoping to avoid. I'd dreamed of xeriscaping most of the front yard--perhaps even all. A landscaper came to look at the yard, and he said that the easiest way to quickly satiate the city is to put in a bunch of grass. And so, the front yard that I wanted to be mostly rock and bark will now be about 80% grass.

The landscaper claimed that grass was the best choice as far as saving time on yardwork goes. He may be right, in some ways. But I was completely willing to work a little harder to have what I had dreamed of.

I guess that part of the back yard will still be left for us to create as we wish, but not until after the landscapers scrape away about 6 inches of dirt and rock and replace it with topsoil, effectively erasing all the plans and outlining we'd started. Our garden will be uprooted. I'm not even sure when I'll get to plant my seed starts at this point.

So our plans aren't totally worthless, but right now it feels that way. Like all the stuff we were willing to do doesn't matter. And I guess we'd better get used to the idea of mowing a lawn Every. Damn. Week. All. Summer.

So a lot of stuff is on hold right now, and gardening might not be a reality until June. I'm hoping that I can still make a lot of my projects work out despite the setback.

From My Library: The Woman Warrior

New blog feature: sharing some books from my beloved library with the world. I don't want to write a big synopsis or review of these books--just talk a little bit about them.
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The Woman Warrior
-Maxine Hong Kingston

"Night after night my  mother would talk-story until we fell asleep. I couldn't tell where the stories left off and the dreams began..."

A beautiful and complicated story. I've heard people say that they dislike the narrator, but I somehow find myself entranced by her, her story, how she tells her account of growing up in a strange place (amidst what it is to be American, Chinese, and Chinese-American) that can't be easily explained. It is a study of relationships, primarily between the narrator and her mother, but it contains so much more.

This is not an "easy" book, and I understand why some dislike it. For me, though, it pierced me, hitting some part of me that wouldn't stop bleeding once it had been touched. It made sense, although it was disturbing. Perhaps it is best described this way, from a New York Times reviewer: "it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword."

It is tough for me to name favorites, but I would say that this is probably my favorite book. I don't love it for a warm fuzzy feeling or satisfying resolution. I love it for its confusion, beauty, and layers of depth.

"Be careful what you say. It comes true. It comes true."

Potential Yard Plan

Bad picture...still gets the point across

I've spent the last little while working on this: the plan for the front and back yards. I finally got it to a point where I'm pretty happy with it now.

There are different elements that will be part of the yard. Here are the different parts, along with the supplies that I expect we'll need:

-Bark. This will make up a fair amount of the yard. It will line the edges of the fence on the north and west sides. There will be patches of it in other places as well, potentially with shrubs and stuff planted. Needed supplies: weed barrier, bark.
-Rock. This will cover a lot of the front yard. Needed supplies: weed barrier, rocks.
-Grass. Trying to keep this to a minimum so we don't go crazy trying to maintain it, but we do want a little in some strategic spots. Needed supplies: topsoil, grass seed OR sod, sprinkler system.
-Dirt/soil beds. For areas with flowers/plants/garden/etc. Needed supplies: topsoil, organic matter, rocks for border, plants.
-Gravel. For areas where nothing needs to grow and should be kept very low-maintenance. Needed supplies: gravel, weed barrier (possibly).
-Dirt/gravel path. We'll probably just leave it as dirt for now, then add gravel to it later on. Needed supplies: gravel.

Next project is to estimate how much each project will cost...

Skinny Snickerdoodles

Oh my giddy goodness.
Amazing. So amazing.
Found a recipe for Skinny Snickerdoodles from Chocolate-Covered Katie, the Healthy Dessert Blog. Because I don't have a lot of patience, I didn't bother to refrigerate before cooking. I also just added some cinnamon to the dough instead of rolling the dough balls in cinnamon/sugar mix. Amazing.