First Snowfall

The backyard looks so peaceful with the fresh snow.

The green house was fine in the snow.  Hopefully it makes it to the spring!

Leaves

I feel like there is an invisible force field that surrounds our front yard.  There is barely any leaves on it while you can see the yards across the street are absolutely covered!! 

Planning ahead

Last year we purchased Christmas lights to decorate our house but we never hung them because it was too cold (and we hadn't bought a ladder yet).  Since today was a beautiful day Craig decided that we should hang out Christmas lights now so that we won't have to do it in the cold!  I think they look pretty good, although it feels a little ridiculous planning for Christmas already!

Winter is coming

There was frost on my sun flowers this morning.

I am impressed at how nice they look considering it is getting so cold at night.

Corn!!

Tonight we had a feast of garden corn!!! 

It was delicious.  

Soon

The corn will be ready to harvest soon!

Gutters

On the weekend Craig cleaned out our gutters and adjusted the eaves so that they will flow properly.  Previously they were angled away from the drain spout!  So we now have nice clean non-level gutters.  

Large clump of grass that was growing up there.

Craig carefully minding the sunflowers while adjusting the eaves.

Wall tiles

We have finally gotten around to fixing the bathroom wall.  Many months ago when we had to remove the sink to replace the faucet we accidentally tore some paint off the wall.  After long deliberations we finally decided that wall tiles are the best solution to this problem.

Before:

After:

 

And just for fun here is the step by step!

Mixing up the mortar... wish they would have had the pre-mixed in stock.  

This was definitely the hardest part.

Getting ready to put the adhesive on the wall.

I only made a little bit of a mess during this stage.

It is actually only two "tiles" but each is made of of the smaller ones.  

Made this project super easy.

Applying the grout.  I definitely made a mess during this step!  

Sealing the grout.  You have to paint it on and not let it dry on the tiles.

At this stage I was still being super careful and patient... 

eventually I just started slopping it on and wiping off the tiles.

It may not be perfect, but I am quite proud of myself. 

Garden Update

We are going to have so many squash!

The sunflowers are now taller than the window!

Some sweet peas that I planted in May have magically appeared out of the weeds in the front flower beds!  

We need a fence

When looking down our back alley we are the only house on the block that doesn't have a fence around our yard.  This didn't really bother me before.  However, it has become apparent that random/shady people are walking through our yard on a regular basis.  Unfortunately some one stole our time lapse camera from the back yard last week!  I am very disappointed because it has been capturing the garden growing for months now and I was looking forward to making the video for the blog.  Just a few days later a particularly shady fellow happened to be walking by right when I was opening the office window.  We had a very awkward chat and then he ran away!

We were planning on getting a fence in the future, but these recent events have made it our next priority with the house.

On a related note I have been quite jumpy recently about activity in the backyard.  This morning I was quite startled when I saw some movement from the kitchen out of the corner of my eye...

... but it was just a sneaky bunny.

Lol!

I think it might be time to clean the eaves on the garage... several things growing up there!

Holy Sunflowers!!!

The sunflowers are getting very big.  

They now block half of the guest room window.

Here is a Karen for scale.

Very productive garden!

Salad made only with ingredients from the garden! Lettuce, carrots, peas.

Craig preparing green beans.  We have so many green beans!

The bright/lighter green peppers are from the green house.

They are called "bombay peppers" but taste similar to jalapenos!  

We have also had several very large zucchinis.  

We harvested this guy when he was about a foot long and I made 8 cups of succotash!

Crazy Corn

Putting corn in the greenhouse may not have been our best idea.  

Even though it is too tall, it is still finding a way to grow more!

I am not even sure how the one plant found it's way between the wood and plastic.

After leaving the house unattended for our honeymoon....

We came back to find absolutely nothing wrong!!!  The garden looks great, there was no water leaking into the basement, and everything was secure even though we forgot to lock almost every main floor window (whoops).

I was particularly happy that my sunflowers are doing exceptionally well and one even started to bloom!

The tallest ones are now significantly taller than me!

It already has several bee friends!

They looked like they were having a blast rolling around in the pollen.

Hail storm

We had a lot of large hail last night...

But I am happy to report that the green house survived!  

There are some indents in the plastic, but no holes.

The garden has a few torn leaves but overall is in good form!

Sunflowers Update

The sunflowers that I planted on the south wall of the house are getting quite big.  The largest one is higher than my waist!  It has started to form it's flower.  

You can see this guy has some ants as friends.

Enjoying the fruits of Craig's labour

The squash in the green house are taking over!!

We also have lots of strawberries in there.  

The lettuce in the main garden is doing quite well so I decided to have some for lunch!

I don't know if it tastes so good because it is fresh or if this variety is particularly tasty.

Sunflowers

I don't really understand why, but some of the sunflowers are doing very well and others are doing very poorly.  Mysteries of life. 

Greenhouse Update

Everything in the greenhouse is growing like crazy!  

Here is a Craig for scale.

It isn't easy being green

When Craig built the green house he transplanted a bunch of the seedlings from the garden into the greenhouse.  The plants that were moved into the warmer climate are thriving!  For comparison:

Left = garden corn, right = green house corn!!

For this comparison I picked the largest corn plant in each space.  I am excited because this means the green house veggies will be ready to harvest sooner!  

Handy rails

We finally got around to installing hand rails on our stairs.  This is actually required for insurance purposes and it only took us over a year to get around to!  It is now much easier to go down the stairs in the middle of the night. 

Being spray painted.

Newly installed.

Rainy Day!

The rain barrel filled up in one day!!

Rain Barrel

Today Craig and his dad built a stand for our rain barrel.  Hopefully this year it rains as much as last year so it can get filled up!!!   

My sunflowers are doing quite well, 80% of them have sprouted so far: 

Front flower beds

I have just about finished cleaning up the front flower beds.  The rototiller wasn't able to clean up the plants right next to the side walk so I had to dig those up with the shovel.  Now I just need to go shopping to pick up flowers to plant there!  

Sidenote: This is my 100th post!