Leaves

As promised, I wanted to show you our giant leaf pile, along with the results of some of the other yard clean up we did a dew weeks ago. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but our town offers a great service where they will vacuum up all the leaves as long as we rake them all to the curb. Everyone gets a week based on their trash pickup. Our week was the week of Thanksgiving, which was perfectly timed to allow all the leaves to finish dropping before we had to rake.

What we didn't anticipate was that there would be utility work going on in the street on the day we planned for our raking. The jack hammer sound track left a little bit to be desired.

Greg got the crew to move their tar from our curb though, so we could have a place to pile the leaves. 

Around the side of the house, in the patio area, we had to deal with the remnants from the storm. 

We made two piles of debris, one of wood we we'll be able to burn once it's dries out, and the other of the twigs and leaves to be picked up as yard waste. 

After a few hours, it looked like this.

And, by the time we left for Thanksgiving dinner, the leaves and twigs in the front of the house were all gone!

Fall Storm

A few weeks ago, we were hit by the early winter storm that wrecked havoc on the east coast. Since then, life has been a bit discombobulated, with being out of power for a dew days, me traveling for work, and deadlines that won't quit for Greg. So, I'm playing a little bit of catch both around the house, and with the blog. 

So, first, let me tell you about the storm.

The slushy rain started early in the evening, the weekend before Halloween. Greg and I went out to dinner and a movie with our friend Steve. By the time we got home that night, the snow was starting to accumulate. Sometime after 10:00 that night, we heard a loud crash, and the power went out. We went to the bedroom window, and this is what we saw.

It's never good when there is a heavy wet snow before the leaves have fallen off of the trees. I remember an early October storm when I was a kid that caused endless days of power outages. When we saw the tree bent over in the side yard, we figures we'd loose the tree, but we had no idea what we were in for for the next few days. 

Sure enough, within about another half hour, we heard another snap. In the morning, this was the view out the dining room window. 
 

I'm definitely sad to see this tree go. We had a nice shady spot for the hammock at the side of the house,  a lot of which was provided by this tree. But, it is true that the area was a it over grown, and we were having trouble deciding what to do. I guess sometimes nature has to take it's course. 

Greg and I got bundled up and headed out to survey the damage. We cut up the tree a bit so that we could pull it off of other limbs that hadn't yet snapped. We lost quite a few limbs off of the overgrown lilac seen right behind Greg. I'm sad about that too, but again, it was over grown. 

This is our azalea, looking quite droopy. 

Even the forsythias looked a little bit smaller. 

Above, is another one of our overgrown lilacs with a few snapped limbs. 

And...a branch fell from the large pine tree in back as well. 

Thankfully, on Saturday night, we realized it could be awhile before we had power. We decided to empty the freezer, (which had been recently stocked, including a home cooked shepherd's pie from my mom), into coolers. We figured that the snowy back stairs were colder than the freezer soon would be. In the morning, when we still didn't have power, we emptied the rest of the fridge into coolers as well. 

Unfortunately, it was actually a really warm day, into the 50s. I started to worry that we were going to loose everything. Luckily, while chatting with our friends Doug & Lis, who has offered us a hot dinner and a place to shower, also happened to have room in their basement chest freezer, so we made a trip down with all of our frozen items. We didn't end up loosing anything frozen. 

Sunday night, after Doug & Lis's hospitality, we returned home, out on lots of layers, and snuggled up under extra blankets. Thank goodness that it was actually reasonable outside. 

Monday morning, Halloween, still no power. We spent the evening visiting Louis instead of hanging out in the cold and dark, and repeated the layered pajamas of the night before. I was beginning to loose patience! Tuesday with no change. We could see the branch down the street that was still hanging over the wires. The frustrating thing was that all of the streets around us never lost power! We spent the afternoon making arrangements to head to our friend Michael and Sabrina's later that night for another hot shower. But, before I headed home that night, Michael texted me to tell me he'd seen this on his way home from work....

Our porch light, what a beautiful sight! 

And ever since, we've still been trying to get caught back up from our nearly three day adventure without power. Eventually, I will get around to telling you about the progress we made in our office, the weekend before the storm when my mom was here for a visit. I also have a bunch of photos of the progression of fall through our yard. So stay tuned!

Bulbs

Saturday afternoon, I made my first venture into the world of bulbs. I always love seeing the early signs of spring making their way out of the cold ground in April. Last fall, I was way too busy to plant. And, we didn't know what might have already been in the ground. We had to watch for a year to see what came up. I really have no idea what I am doing, but I decided to give it a go. (I called my mom several times.)

I kept it fairly simple, and decide just to plant in the two areas next to the front steps I that I planted in the spring. I got daffodils, hyacinth, crocus and anemones. For full disclosure, I only managed to plant the daffodils so far. After digging 40 6" deep holes, my hand was killing me. I'll get the rest planted, in shallower holes, next weekend.

Next year, maybe we will manage to expand into a sidewalk border. I also got a few mums, and an aster which is supposed to be a perennial. We'll see how it does. I'm a little bit afraid it won't be sunny enough. I love the colors of the asters so much though, that next year, I think I might plant some on the front corner with the hostas and the sedum (see the picture below with the red fence in the background.)

I'm also taking some chances on the bulbs. Some of them want full sun, some want full sun/partial shade. Once the leaves are on the maple trees, our front yard is pretty shady. But, since the bulbs should be blooming before the leaves are on the trees, hopefully it will work out. 

The last thing I planted was a hydrangea that has been sitting on the front steps all summer. If it has a prayer of coming back, I needed to get it in the ground. I decided to use it to fill in this little gab between two of the bushes in the front. Maybe it will help disguise the hose and the gutter someday!

Ultimately, I plan to get rid of most, if not all, of the forsythias along the red fence, and replace them with hydrangeas. There is an offshoot of the lilac bush trying to get started here too. Greg recently trimmed the forsythias, and did remove one of the far right to free up the lilac a little bit. It looks so much less cluttered already.

Watching Things Grow

Rainy, windy days stuck inside do prove useful for getting caught up on life. One thing we've done a lot of around here this spring and summer is just watch things grow. It's hard to imagine what to do with your yard before you've spent a year watching what's in it. As the summer gets ready to come to a close, this seems like a good time for a photo dump of the wide variety of plant like we have in this yard. Hopefully next spring and summer, we will manage to get a better handle on it!

The biggest landscaping story has to be the abundance of forsythia. It seems to go on forever, and grows about a foot a month. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to tame it!

April: In full bloom, along the red fence Badly in need of a prune!

April: The yellow wall along the side fence in the back yard. 

April: But wait, there's even more around the north side of the house.
We may soon do away with these shrubs in favor of a driveway expansion. We certainly have plenty elsewhere. 

May: trying to tame the yellow beast and give the little lilac a place to grow. 

May: I believe we filled up close to 40 yard waste bags this spring.
This does not include the piles of branches we have been burning in our fire pit all summer!

May: It seems we could have created another whole hedge from what we got rid of. 

May: We could actually see the ground underneath for about a month.
It's since grown back with a vengeance. 

April: Mystery plant sprouting up along the north fence in the back yard.

May: It's filling in quite nicely, and helping to disguise the less than
attractive cinder blocks on our neighbor's side. 

May/June: I'm pretty sure the stuff on the right is some kind of weed.
Goldenrod maybe? I will be hacking that down next year for sure. 

July: Just in time for the 4th, the day lilies reveal themselves. 

July: This mystery plant has cool purple bell shaped flowers,
right next to the day lilies. 

 May: This large lilac was in full bloom, just behind the red fence in the corner.
We can see it from our bedroom window. 

May: Azalea in full bloom. 

May: Another Azalea on the patio.  

May: I planted the new bleeding heart from my friend Leah. It got a little dried out looking recently.
I hope it comes back ok next year. 

June: These shrubs are giving the forsythia at the garage side of the house a run for their money. 

June: A giant hosta emerged in front of the red metal fence.
Above, is our second large lilac bush. 

June: 10 days later, the rose bush that is squashed in the
corner of the fence by the lilac was in full bloom.

June: There are offshoots of the bush in the corner,
but they got pretty overtaken by the day lilies a few weeks later. 

July: Hostas and Sedum on the front corner.
Next year, hopefully we will add some evergreen ground cover to this area. 

July: Hosta just starting to bloom.

June: Shriveled poison ivy along the sidewalk outside our fence, after two applications of poison. 

June: Sidewalk after Greg finished clearing away all the dead stuff.
He managed to do it all without getting a rash, and he is allergic!