Out in our yard

July 16, 2006: Today I cut the back yard near the back woods and then proceeded around the east side. I wanted to cut the gone-by daisy heads and the tall grasses. Leaving the Corn Flowers and other wild flowers.

I also decided to lay in the north-south front path that goes from the road to the east back corner of the yard.

You can see the east west path moving across the front yard and barely see the north south path from the road in the top left.

The new north-south path will become more pronounced as the Corn Flowers grow and a trample it down more.

This is the path that goes out to the road.

After a few attempts I go the curve right going up around and over the berm. So as you walk it curves gently so you don't get any hard turns. The path dead ends at both ends. So you need to enter it where id crosses the front east-west path (or go overland:)

This is the path end moving over the berm towards the woods.

Eventually I thin I would like to gravel these paths live I have the entry path. Or border them with Hostas. I need to give it a year of living with before I take that more permanent step.

As you'll see I plan to make swirl off-shoot paths that will have some plantings and bushes in the blub of the swirl.

The rest of the plan is to make the daisies totally take over the north side of the east-west path out to the road and bring the violets down to the berm (after the the violets go-by the Corn Flowers take over this area) to the south side of the path.

The paths are perfect for now because they let me taverse the front yard, east-west and now north-south, without trampling down things that I - know - I want to grow. As well as some that I am not too sure about yet.

Now to move the daisies...

(to come)

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July 6, 2006: Made my own crop circle today. Not so mysterious as those in England. The - Out in my yard - version. How did that happen?

Tomato plants in the circle on July 6, 2006

Where did those Marigolds come from? Not too spooky.

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I'm still catching up here. These notes and photos are from July 4th weekend through July 9 even though the post is dated August 22, 2006. I am in fact on the Outer Banks visiting my daughter and her husband and Finnegan. So here's to vacation, and more catching up.

Remember the planting of the tall yellow daisies in June to block the woodpile? Well I expanded that graden to include vegetables that my Dad gave me. Peppers (Bell and Cherry Hot), tomatoes (Eary Boy, Amish and Cherry) and Chives (actually transplanted from the patio patch).

I also cleaned up in front of the woodpile (I can't wait two years until the tall daisies grow and fill out).

I planted some Morning Glory seeds in front of the pile and with luck and training they will grow up the face of the pile by end of the summer.

Oh, also notice that gravel path has been opened up. I re-edged the path and dug up all the gravel that the grass had covered. Now to keep it free of grass the rest of the summer.

Here is the BEFORE photo.

Entry path from the car park to the house entry door on the patio. Photo shows the dollop at the beginning of the path by the car park.

The sod from the path edge and the expanded vegetable bed was used to define the edge of the path in the woods.

The blue Corn Flowers are starting to bloom and the Tiger Lilies are beautiful.

I have also noticed...

...that there are some Black Eyed Susans freely mixed in with the daisies.

Someone recently said to me it is good to be free. But what do you do with it? Well today I was free to get up at 10 a.m. to plant the vegetable plants even through a pouring rain. I got soaked to the skin and didn't come in until the first thunder clap!

Looking out onto the patio.

Looking out of the studio window upstairs into the front yard.

I was free to read some short stories by an author I discovered quite by chance (they called to me), A. S. Byatt from her "The Matisse Stories". Free to have lunch and share it with Baby Dog. Free to hang some paintings downstairs and prepare four panels for new work. Free for work on materials for my Westport Arts Center Show. Free to do laundry, wash the dishes, clean up after the dog, pick a bunch of flowers. And jot this down in my notebook while drinking a pint of Guinness.

Free to go to sleep until 6:12 a.m. Monday when I am free to go back to work and pay for all this freedom.

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The wild roses that ring the edges of the yard would take over everything if I let them. It is tempting because they are beautiful and the scent is wonderful. The last a few weeks from mid to June into early July. Some years I have let them have their way only to see them grow brittle and die from within. Until all you have is a crown of greenery, rose hips over a unforgiving center of dry and dead thorny branches.

Still I let...

...them go. Not quite the attentive care taker or pruner that I should be. Not wanting to risk trimming away something that is doing fine now. Or unwilling to lose what grows naturally. Maybe this is just the way things are. Not acting until it is too late and all that is left is a thorny center.

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Thought I'd try and save some money on my electric bill by putting up a clothes line. No pulley or anything so technical as that though. Just a rope and clothes pins.

Before the line.

So I bought 50 feet of nylon clothes line and a package of clothes pins at my local hardware store. Now this hardware store isn't just any run of the mill local hardware store. If is lumberyard, rental place, fuel seller in a complex of buildings that seem to have no end. I guess you can officially call me a "local" now, only took me some twenty odd years and because my store charge back goes back to when they were in the old store. The store is still in the family too. The local thing may be more because our kids grew up here and know more people than I do. They went to school with the kids who are now moving into the family business.

Ok, now where was I? Oh yes...

...the clothes line electricity saving conservation machine. It is interesting that you design and build a passive solar house to be energy efficient. You intend to burn wood as your primary heating source, but, the building code police say - Hold on the hippy, draft dodger, anti-nuclear, artist type, freak - Wod cannot be your primary heating source. This is the modrn age. We burn oil son. And you need to sustain heat for a 24-hour period. So after centuries of people heating with wood it is now "unsustainable". So to get a occupancy permit we needed to put in a small electric wall furnace (which is really not such a bad idea) in hind sight (like closets, but that is another story). So in the end the house is not rated "passive solar" but "all electric" go figure. So here I am "all electric" with nuclear plants producing it. What is the old saying we used back in the late seventies when we were beginning this fight, "Using nuclear energy to boil water to turn turbines to generate electricity is like, using a chainsaw to cut butter." So we do our best. The upside though is that as an "all electric" house we actually pay a lower rate. Ha! So my clothes line is carrying a lot of weight.

Now if I just remember to bring the clothes in before a rain I'll be all set.

Andif I extend the line from tree to tree I can be line Christo :)

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Make sure you see the Walk around the house June 16, 2006 post before you view this one.

(told you they'd grow)

The photos say it all...

Around into the front yard...

The pumpkins are up!

...and it's only July first!

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I wanted to plant some Tiger Lilies and Tall Yellow Daisies in the north east corner of the yard, but needed a way over there. Another path was in order.

Beginning at the entry path, running around the bird feeder and…

…ending up in the north east corner where I transplanted the Tiger Lilies and Tall Yellow...

...Daisies and where I planted Pumpkin (seeds). Eventually there will be Tomatoes and Morning Glories here too.

Watch. They'll grow.

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June 22, 2006 evening photo of daisies in full bloom and Corn Flower stalks getting ready.

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June 22, 2006 overcast morning photo taken from my bedroom window.

In the weeks ahead as all the other stalks bud the morning sun that peeks around the corner of the house (to the left) will make these all glow like they are lit from within. I am taken for my bedroom the room that my son last had so this is a completely new experience for me. Just think that this has been going on for over twenty years without me ever knowing. (Jamie did you notice?)

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Clover flowers June 17, 2006.

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June 16, 2006

June 16, 2006: Lots of things come up first on the patio.

Daisies and soon to be flowering Corn Flowers on the patio.

This is the solar south side and entry for the house. It gets the first benefit of the warm sun.

Solar south elevation with Tiger Lilies, Corn Flowers and Tall Yellow Daisies.

We built the house in the early 1998's and raised our family here. The kids are now grown and I am here on my own (with Baby Dog, she's in some of the photos). The yard was not always the - Yard - during that time, Some years it was - Knowingly Mowed - and others just mowed. Anyway the solar south has longer growing season. The east berm is next in length of season. This berm is mostly Tiger Lilies in July and a flowering vine (of some sort) come August.


East berm with Tiger Lilies in bud and pear tree.

This is east side down from the berm with Daisies and (white) Wild Roses in bloom.

There is a patch of ferns by the roses that I plan to expand out more.

Here is the view of the front yard from the deck looking east with more Wild Roses (BTW they smell wonderful).

The field beyond and the one across the street is owned by the farm out there (the second from left white building). They are very nice and let me trim back the hedges so the view can be maintained. If I'd have left them alone after twenty years the trees would have blocked it.

The view from the deck is to the north. I took liberties with the passive solar design and of course have a deck and big windows on the north side.

View from the deck slightly northwest. Those are Daisies out in the yard, an apple tree to the left and a Buckthorn Bush toward the center and a Forsythia Bush (gone by, but this was its best year yet) to the right. In the center is a bird feeder and Tall Yellow Daisies.

This is looking across the front yard from the path near car park. More Wild Roses in upper left and those are Hostas curving up from the bottom right.

Path coming in from car park with west house berm on right.

We are almost around the house now. Back on the path from the car park to the patio and entry. And look who came out to meet us… (Read about Baby's Big Adventure) To the right is where the Tiger Lilies and Tall Yellow Flowers were transplanted to hide the woodpile.

The east side yard with wild flowers and live and dead Cattail Ferns (there are Tiger Lilies in there somewhere too, that is another project).

Daisies and one of Nan's rose bushes along the path to the patio.

Here we are back on the patio looking at Tiger Lilies buds and Milk Weed plant buds.

I think I'll go in for a Guinness and a nap.

View of patio from inside the common room (that's the corner of the couch at right, zzzzzz)

Back to July 1, 2006 post.

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June 11, 2006: This year (summer) has been officially designated - The Year of the Birds and the Bees - by me. It is part of a FIVE YEAR PLAN of transplanting, spreading, making paths, trimming all around the yard and into the woods. The goal is to have less to hack and more that is budding and beautiful for the birds and the bees – and me.

June 11, 2006 the yard, view and me reflected in my studio window.

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June 11, 2006: I’ll spend more time in the woods later but on June 11, 2006 I cut back some high growth at the back of the property line so the ferns would have more room.

Opening up the ferns in the wood. Looking back toward the house.

My aim in the woods is cover the floor with any clippings from the yard. I have a path winding from the yard into the woods to the back fence. I would like at some point to be able to see through the woods to the field beyond. It is very wet back here so any chippings or brush spread out will rot and create a thick mulch.

In August I took some of those purple flowering plants that grow in wet area along Route 7 and planted some back here, actually I have mixed feeling about this – we’ll see... and so will you if you check in next year.

June 11, 2006 the kids old tree house c1985 $300,000

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June 11, 2006: After what seems like weeks of rain and cool weather the yard is very green and very wet. The great thing about - Knowing – is that if you let them interesting things just grow. There is no fretting over the dollars spent on that shrub that is now drowning. You can use what is at hand (that just comes up) or that you pull out from along the road. The fact is that my Tiger Lilies came from a sand heap on a back road near my home (about 18 years ago) and have been spreading and growing ever since. I do add some bought things: Seeds for vegetables and also get plants from my Dad and other friends and family. But I am afraid my Morning Glory seeds have rotted in the ground this time.

The things I find out there and then those that I keep I try and nurture. So rule number one is – Give it a chance before you chop, hack, trim it, mow it or yank it out –

Yard photos (also see photos in this post) before the growing season really takes off.

Back path to the woods beaten down by wheelbarrow loads of clippings (more on what those clipping are doing in the woods later). Note in the June 10, 2006 post there is no path (many trios to the woods today). VIEW

June 11, 2006 front side looking east at Hostas (in arc under tree) and Tiger Lilies up on berm near house. In a July the berm, to the right, will be ablaze with orange Tiger Lilies and then in August the yard, to the left, beyond will be a blue haze of Corn Flowers. Posts coming soon, once I finish catching up...

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Hiding the woodpile

June 11, 2006: The mower that I did have used to reside behind the woodpile and since it is no more I really miss calling what I do - Knowing Mowing - but maybe I can come up with some other catch phrase. Now my Dad did try to get the mower running again for me back in April. He actually is really good at that mechanical stuff and he also carves in plastic. I guess that’s who I take (the artist side of me, not the yard care side) after. Anyway in April I took the tarp off the old mower (it had been as I said behind the woodpile all winter) loaded it into the trunk of my 1998 Camry (yes it has a huge trunk) and took it to Dads’ Fix It Shop (AKA the garage). A few weeks later I got it back. Rust scrapped off, painted and in running order. So I mowed a little along the path and then put it back behind the woodpile, covered it back up and waited for the grass to grow. . . A couple of weeks later I went out to start my - Knowing Mowing - in earnest. But, it must have thought it was winter again with the cold and wet spring we were having and went back into hibernation. No matter how hard I pulled the cord or pumped the primer it would not start. I like to of pulled my arm off trying. No go. So I gave it back to Dad and went on to my hacking, scything and yanking. Not as lyrical a - Knowing Mowing - but much better exercise, and I actually like it better. I can see better what I am doing and it leaves more to work with (wow that’s a cool spin) as well as using NO GAS.

So here we are (still on June 11) using the plants I took out of the patio path to try and hide the woodpile. What a mess (you know until you take a photo you just don't see it, all I see is fuel and money saved on oil - not that I have an oil furnace).

June 11, 2006 Tiger Lilies and tall Daisy plants (in wheelbarrow) ready to be planted,

You take the sod off and put it aside. Then dig out the soil and put into a wheelbarrow. Then put the sod into the bottom of the bed upside down. Then put the soil back in.

June 11, 2006 the bed I am digging is what is called double-dug.

This method uses sod to mulch and feed the bed and the soil that was at the bottom to plant in. Now some words of caution: Make sure you don't, say, back a car into one of these double-dug beds. Take it from me it is not a pretty sight especially in February. "Oh, that bed will be frozen. I can just drive over it.." WRONG! The soil in these beds tend to stay pretty loose for a long time. "How can my tires be buried that deep! I didn't dig it that deep in first place." Ah. The wonderful world of nature.

Ok, it will be a while (like years) before the plants grow enough to cover that. But that is how I heat the house. It's kind of hard hiding seven cords of wood. I like to keep enough for two years of mild winters on the ground.

Note that the wheelbarrow is actually sitting on the mostly grown over gravel path. More coming about that...

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June 11, 2006: So I try not to get overwhelmed (too late). Just do something. So I take some Tiger Lilies and tall yellow daisy plants and corn flowers (a failed attempt ) (ok, from the start lets be clear I don’t really - know - the names of many of the plants I - knowingly – keep) out from along the path leading to the patio where the View Kira's Irises entry door is.

Knowing (if you do please add a comment and help me out , or recommend a good book on wild flowers) of course that, come July the path will be like a gauntlet... (especially in wet weather).

But I like the way the path breaks through to the little open patio area.

June 11, 2006 working on opening the path. The right foreground has Tiger Lilies and what will be tall yellow daisy plants come July,

June 11, 2006 I also have to free up the birdbath a bit...

...and tried to get a vine that will just choke everything if I let it instead wrap around a wire fence (until I can decide what to do with it), but more on that later.

The results...

June 11, 2006 patio with daisies...

June 11, 2006 weeded patio from inside the house.

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