How are you? It's been a while.

Yeah, yeah..I know. I keep saying I'll post pictures and it never happens. Well, you never come by to visit, so there. Everything at 21 West is much as it has been. Viola and I have been enjoying having our projects at completion, and are happily watching most of the grass and vegetables grow. We've been enjoying snacking on fresh snowpeas and kale, and are looking forward to eating some zucchini in a couple of weeks! We're so ahead of the curve it's not even funny.

We just celebrated my birthday last week and I got enough dangerous power tools to start a small woodshop, and I'm hard at work in the basement creating the first of what I hope will be a long series of wooden toys. Odd...I know, but I need a hobby and crafting stuff has always been appealing and rewarding. I'd say I'd try to post photos, but you and I both know that the likelyhood of that actually happening is slim. Maybe you should just come by and see it.

Check back later. I'll write more.

We crossed the finish line!

Hey, we did it! It was a busy memorial day weekend. We managed to get the fence cut down, gate door modified and new handle installed, fence posts capped, new mailbox installed and new shades hung. On top of all of this we finished planting the entire big garden (at Rockpoint) and our grass is coming up! As we're considering this our time for a little breathing room, I'm going to compile all of the work-in-progress photos we've taken and put together an album up on picassa. I'll post the link here when it's up. Hopefully within the next week or so. Stay tuned.

Finished?

The wood chips are gone! The lawn is seeded! We're at the home stretch!

Bringing you up to speed - the Shed

Here are some photos that show the progress of the shed. The first photo is what it looked like early last year. Note the hole in the side...

Here it is with the broken boards fixed and primed:

...and here it is after being fully repaired and re-painted.

I'll post more photos, I swear!

We're getting there! ALL of the perennial beds (three new, two replanted), the herb bed, and most of the shrubbery has been planted. We're still looking for homes for the lilacs and are in the process of trying to get rid of our mountain of mulch created when the stumps were ground down. While still not finished, progress is definitely visible. I'm going to be in the back yard cleaning up tonight for a little BBQ we're having, so I'll try to snap some photos of it to post. No promises, but I'll really try.

Oh, right! While you're waiting to see what it really looks like right now, here is a link to some photos of the tree removal that Ted shot.

Who took my trees?!

Wow! What a difference! The tree guys finally showed up yesterday and deforested us. It looks VERY different. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we have a long project list for the weekend. Shrub planting, herb replanting, perennial bed planting, grass seeding...like I said earlier: busy, busy, busy. I'll try to get some photos of the tree removal up soon.

Busy, busy, busy!

What a weekend! Absolutely beautiful weather led to a weekend of much garden progress. If only these good-for-nothing tree guys would actually show up! What started two months ago as a nice little cottage garden project has blossomed into a garden extravaganza. First there was the addition of the new perennial beds and the removal of the trees. This weekend we decided to repaint the shed and add some shrubbery to the front of the house. We have some photos of the repainted shed (which looks very sharp), and I'll try to snap some pics of the shrubs (boxwood) when we get them in. All I have to say is that it's really falling into place...if only we hadn't butchered our plum tree...

Back to the drawing board...

Had a lot of high winds last night and the greenhouses were pretty much destroyed. I guess Velcro isn't really high-winds-worthy. Time to make a trip to Lowe's to find a more industrial-strength fastener...

Planning starting to repaint the shed this weekend, also. Busy, busy, busy.

Who needs grass?

So much for the new grass...I mentioned earlier that we killed the best part of the lawn putting in the raised vegetable beds. Below is a series of photos showing the progress. The final product isn't shown, unfortunately. I'll try to get shots up soon of how it looks now. The grass is actually growing up pretty well all over the place, despite all of the new dirt dumped over it, and the beds are full of healthy, happy tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, radishes, beans, carrots, peas, chard, etc... We'll be eating Kale in a couple of weeks!

No more grass for us...it was hard to break ground here after we spent so much time last year rebuilding the yard from scratch.

...and of course we needed to find a place for the soil we excavated, so we basically spread it out over as large an area as we could. Luckily, must of the side yard was already dead.

Here you can see three of the raised beds set in place, and the pile of bricks that we (Viola) would be laying over about four days.

Viola at work with the last section of brick (500 total).

Most of the brick completed and the greenhouses in progress.

Finished brick and two greenhouses in place.

Look for more soon!

Tree guys

OK - we got our 4 quotes from tree guys estimating how much it will cost to take down the 8 or so trees around our property. Let's make it a quick guessing game to figure out which one we're going with:

A. $1,200

B. $3,000

C. $1,250

D. $775

If you chose anything but D., you must have forgotten that Zach took a pay cut last year. With luck, we'll have much more sun hitting the new lawn by mid-May. We'll keep you posted.

Back in business?

Well, the wheels are in motion at 21 West Lane again! Viola and I have dusted off the to-do list in our minds and have a few projects in mind for the summer season. This includes the addition of a new set of raised vegetable beds to supplement our 600-square foot plot down by the lake, the creation of a few more flower beds, and the removal of a bunch of trees.

The garden plots have already been installed at the time of me writing this, and I'll try to upload photos soon. The tree job is currently being quoted by a few professionals (don't worry Ted, we're hiring this one out), and I'll try to be there when it happens to catch the action as it happens. In the meantime, try to check back in. I'll try to remember to keep posting things of interest.

21 West Lane - A History

HEY, LOOK, A NEW POST! I doubt anyone is reading this anymore, but just in case, I thought you might find this interesting. I know I did. I recently needed to go to the Winooski Town Clerk's office to get a form filled out for tax purposes, and at the same time do a little research on the right-of-way we enjoy on our neighbors property. The amount of information that they have on our house is staggering, and right away someone recognized our house as formerly belonging to the family that owns the Kingsford Charcoal company...who would have thought?! So while I'm there digging through old deeds and tracing the owners of our house back into the 40's, I was also handed these great old photos of our house dating back into the 1970's. It's interesting to see the changes that have gone into it!

Here it is in 1973 (approximately 90 years after construction):

Here it is in 1986: 

Finally, here it is in 2004:

I've never shown it, but our house currently has a 6' privacy fence around the whole thing, so you can't even see it from the road anymore. We're planning on lowering it to a 3' or 4' fence this year to open it back up, as it is much friendlier looking when it's open like these photos. 

Just to give points of reference, the two windows on the first floor to the left are the dining room, the two windows at the right are the living room, and the single window (2004 photo) on the 2nd floor is our bedroom.