Thursday, May 19, 2011

Welcome to the Garden of Weedin'


I've been looking forward to sharing this with you for a month now! The garden fence/landscaping is done! Well, pretty much done.

We have this area at the end of our house between the house and the driveway. It was odd and a pain to mow. In fact, everyone complained about it. Finally, Tanner said "we need to cover it in landscape fabric and put down mulch." I didn't disagree, but if you put down mulch, you have to put up a fence because the chickens Looooooooove to scratch in the mulch.


So, the fenced in garden was born.


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This started out as a weekend project for Tanner. It quickly ballooned a little out of control when Tanner figured out that it was going to take more than a weekend. In fact, it took around 5 weeks. Kind of, a month of Sundays. ha.

Budget? $3.75

No, actually I wanted the budget to be NOTHING, but knew that probably wouldn't happen, so I figured $50 for some basic supplies. It just so happened that we have a huge pile of lumber that we got from our former employer when they disassembled a glass rack.

It was A LOT of wood. Our intentions are to rip the wood down to make rustic baseboards but I just can't seem to get myself too interested in that project yet. blech.

Tanner put down the landscape fabric right off the bat. We were committed at this point.




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There was a lot of this. Yep, I cut every single picket by hand. (well, Tanner cut around 30). All together there's about 125-140 pickets.

Did I mention there's 4-5 different heights of pickets?
Yeah.
Fun.



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We bought the corner 4x4 posts and Tanner dug the holes. (YAY!) That's a pretty sucky job. Then a brace is put between each board for support and to screw the pickets to.



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Since the pickets are not pressure treated (probably a mistake), I wanted to prime and paint each one before it went up, and THIS is where things started to get super slow. Cut each picket, then prime, flip, prime, paint, flip, paint.

slooooooooooooow.

THEN you can assemble.
(posts are pressure treated, so they are not painted yet)



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This is about when I realized, that we really needed to get the fencing done a little quicker. The plants were all coming up, the chickens kept eyeballing my hostas... and chickens loooooooove hostas. I'd "rescued" them several times.



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Somewhere around here, I decided to up my budget and get fancy post caps for each corner post. So much for that $50.00 budget.


oops.


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DONE!!!


Ok, not completely done, but the chickens are out, an the hostas are IN. Technically, the chickens *can* go over the fence. I just don't think they're smart enough yet to know that. I keep checking to make sure. I did end up having to cut another dozen pickets (did you hear that blood curdling scream from NW Mo? yeah that was me). I had to close up some gaps that I thought my fat chickens couldn't get through.


I was wrong.


All that is left, is a little bit of landscape fabric in an established plant area (Oh Tannnnner!) and some more mulch, plus, this fall I will paint the posts.


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I told you the chickens like hostas. Sigh. Left side, I thought was bad... til I saw the one on the right.


I'm very angered at some chickens right now.


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I even put in my shopping cart prop that I bought at an antique store. It'll be filled with flower pots when I'm done... I hope.


Did I mention chickens love impatiens? Yeah. These have been living inside. More about those later. My liatris are on the right. don't get me started on those. I better see blooms this year or heads will roll.


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From the center gate, there's a little rock path so we don't get muddy or drag around the mulch getting to the access panel and the hose.


I think it needs some height though, but planting a tree next to the house - probably a bad idea. Any other ideas? Trees that work great next to houses?


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Chicken resistant! (not chicken proof).


Booyah Rooster!


I keep seeing them longingly looking through the gaps in the fence, salivating at some hostas.


Booyah AGAIN ya damn rooster!!




OK, budget was $50.00 but here's the real breakdown for this project.


$37.00 - 4x4 posts.
$0.00 - Pickets
$0.00 - leftover cement
$6.50 - Screws
$0.00 - Paint (given to us by my mil/fil from my bil's house painting project a few years ago)
$10.00 - Primer
$0.00 - Stone borders - we have a bunch of pink granite stones that have lived here for years.
$11.00 - river pebbles
$10.00 - hinges and latch
$15.00 - landscape fabric
$20.00 - landscape fabric staples - yes, you read that right. grrr.. lots and lots of damn staples
$14.00 - mulch
$40.00 - solar post caps
$63.00 - copper post caps


$226.50 - Total


As you can see, quite a bit over budget, but considering what we could have paid including the wood, or worse yet, *hiring* someone to do the work for us.. (Pffffttttth), we saved a fortune.


Very happy with this project and something I've wanted for years and years - a cute little landscaped garden. Now I can pretend like I have a green thumb!! Plus, very proud that Tanner and I built this whole thing ourselves. Well, Gene did help me for one night for about 15 min, so, .001% by Gene. lol


**************************************



In other news - because I've been so quiet lately. Here's my life in a nutshell lately:



  • Put my hip/back out of place and I'm in pain. Although it is better after 2 trips to the chiro. I had a shoot and made Gene come with me. He wasn't thrilled but put on a happy face for the client. Wedding on Saturday!

  • Tanner (my 16 year old) got his first real job! He'll be working at the local grocery store - same as his brother has done for 5 years. They made a wise choice, he's a hard worker. Sadly this means I won't get to tap him for work here as much. DOH.. foiled again.

  • Our older car has been giving Gene fits. He drives it to work every day. It's been the best car I've ever owned! (2000 dodge neon). However, it's been missing a cylinder and running hard. Finally after calling our friend Duane (king of brisket and dodges) they figured out that it was the coil pack. In the meantime, it also ended up with new spark plugs and wires. Probably needed it anyway.

  • We had another electrical scare! The breaker kept tripping, and I finally got to thinking it might have something to do with the light pole out front that we don't use... and in fact, lays on the ground waiting for "something" new. We turned that off, but noticed a crackling noise, burnt smell in the breaker box!! Gene pulled the breaker, and come to find out, it was burnt. NOT GOOD. So we changed out a couple breakers and will be putting in all new breakers. So far so good.

  • Gene has been working on a birthday/anniversary gift for me for 2 months now. Those events are a month away. I'm very curious now and need great ideas for a gift in return. Thinking socks and a nice shirt aren't gonna cut it this year.

  • Speaking of anniversaries, I talked Gene into doing a photo shoot with our wedding gear on again. He promised to play along nice if we did it in the fall when it's cooler, so I agreed. I've been working on losing a bit of weight so this is an incentive for me! (for the record I can still wear my dress, I just wanna look better lol).

  • My oldest Step-son and his 3 daughters are moving back to Kansas from Colorado. Upside: we get to see them so much more as they'll only be about 2.5 hours away. The down side is that we won't have a free place to stay when we got to CO. lol.

  • Speaking of step-sons, my middle step-son is coming back from Canada for at least a week, maybe two, for a visit. His dad hasn't got to see him here for around 4 years. He's been missed.

  • Kinda glad my 2 are homebodies.

  • Speaking of which, Seth, just finished fireman school and took his state tests in firefighter 1 and 2. Cross your fingers he did well. I've been anxiously awaiting their test results. They should be back in another week or so. If he didn't make it, he can only test one more time before he has to take the WHOLE COURSE over again. (course was 9 months). Once this is done, he's going to take his EMT course locally. Go Seth! I'm proud of him for putting so much time and commitment into it.

  • I like cheese.

  • I just had to say that because this post is super long. But really, I do like cheese. Peanut butter too.

Aren't you sad you asked how I've been now?

4 comments:

geek details said...

It looks great! You guys did a really nice job on it. Wanna come do a fence at my house next? Mine is kinda old and crappy looking :( (and I lack motivation to pay the $2k in parts the damn thing is going to cost).

Anonymous said...

Nope, not sad! Loved this post. It was nice to see a long post again! Fence looks great. And keeping my fingers crossed for Seth. As always, you and Tanner did a great job. The chickens totally crack me up.

Mz-Cellaneous said...

Geek... Hmmm...
Let me get back with you on that. lol.
Maybe after my back heals???

Janice Grinyer said...

I love your fence - its perfect! I wouldnt plant any trees - I would go with a wooden arbor with a small seat(bring out the saw again kids!) and plant easy to start clematis at the base, or annuals like morning glories, which would cover it fast... or both! And if you do go with a tree - I would try a small flowering crab, an elderberry or a peewee hydrangea etc. - something that wont be too big for scale, but would add some interest, and maybe some color...I would make one area a nice shady sitting spot to read a book...with the chickens...then you add the koi pond with a little waterfall...add some Enya music lol and youre done!

Your kids are doing great - making their own path. As their parents its always hard to watch those first adult steps because we so want to catch them like they are two years old again...but now's when we are suppose to let go...yay mom and dad!

Hope that hip thing clears up - SUMMERS COMING ! And cant wait to see "wedding, part II" !!! If I remember correctly that dress of yours is an original!!

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