Leap year

There's an old adage that in the first year your plants sleep, the second they creep, and the third year they leap. For some of the plants I first established at the house, this should be their leap year. Our weather has been lovely this week--cold but clear, which means perfect for weeding.

I have never been so happy to weed! It was so nice to be in the yard again, muttering to myself and saying hello to the plants that are starting to poke out of the ground. We have lots of bulbs now starting to show, and the flowering currants and elderberry bushes are budding.

The winter-blooming daphne is *this close* to erupting in blooms and the stonecrop is forming rosettes--hooray!

I spent all day removing popweed (Cardamine hirsuta, street name: Jumping Jesus) and Herb Robert (Geranium Robertianum, street name: Stinky Bob). I also put down Sluggo, the only insecticide I'll use. I had a moment of panic where I wondered if I was weeding all the forget-me-not that I sowed last fall. That's the problem with wild flowers--how do you know what's a good seedling and what's an invasive weed?


Remember when my aging next door neighbor thought I wanted her Doug Fir removed? She called a surveyor and had him mark her property lines, so I couldn't "take over her yard" like she claims I'd like to do. I carefully pruned only the roses on my side of the surveyor's white post. After I pruned them hard last year and didn't kill them, I became emboldened and pruned them even harder this time. I might actually remember to fertilize them this year but I'm not holding my breath.

I also did silly things like crumpling leaves that had accumulated under the shrubs by hand. Last fall I put uncomposted leaves on the beds, which is generally not advisable. In the wild, leaf mulch breaks down quickly because animals walk on it. In our urban and suburban yards, it just sits there and attracts slugs. But: if you put out a bird feeder nature does what it would do in the wild. To wit:

What used to be three inches of leaves now looks like this

So next fall I'm going to put out fresh leaves and a million bird feeders and I will sit back and know that I'm feeding the wildlife AND my plants.My transformation into That Crazy Bird Lady will be complete. I can't wait.

Also, remember my bird bath that I spent $5 on and drove all the way to a trailer park in Cornelius, which took two and a half hours during rush hour, and then I had to patch it with Liquid Nails so it would not leak? It holds water! So my cheap scavenging on craigslist, while dangerous and unattractive, totally works.

Because I grew up in a cave

I'm a little embarrassed; I'd never actually seen one of these in real life until this guy showed up in my yard.

Turdus migratorius

Robins are HUGE! And yet he got scared away from the birdbath by a teeny tiny bird (I'm terrible at identifying birds so whatever scared it away still gets IDed as a "cute brown bird."). Silly robin. I love having birdbaths; now I just need David Attenborough to show up and narrate.

Housepainting. Oh my god.

After almost a year of obsessively walking our neighborhood and discussing the merits of other people's paintjobs (that's what the song OPP was about, right?) we booked a house painter. We've been playing with the Sherwin Williams color visualizer, which is a pretty nifty tool. Our painter dropped off a book of color combinations and we plugged in a couple of our favorites, only to find that they looked terrible once we pulled them up on the visualizer. Accidental finding: it's really helpful to have your neighbor's house in your photo so you can see how your house will look next to theirs (the house on the right side of us is white).

Sherwin Williams Peppercorn with Saucy Gold on the door

Sherwin Williams Roycroft Pewter with Offbeat door

I'd love to paint the house a warm white and let the landscaping provide the color, but Greg won't go for it. He says it will get too dirty. This from a man who hates that I ask him to remove his shoes inside the house.

SW Porcelain with Deep Sea Dive door

We are both leaning toward blue at this point but blues are *so* tricky. Complicating things is the fact that our house doesn't have much trim, so we don't have a whole lot to diffuse or play off of a bold color. Our windows don't have a paintable inset, so we can't use two colors on them. And our roof is kind of orange. I love the orange but gray would be way easier to work with.

In fact, the more I look at this picture of my house the more I realize that my house just isn't that great to look at from the outside, bad paint job aside. I never really realized this because I'm in love with my house. I imagine this is what it feels like when a parent realizes that their child is not beautiful to other people.

You guys, my house has a good personality. *Sniff.*

We are tentatively booked for late February. As in this month, holy sh*t. The painter will paint three different swatches on our house for free, after that we have to pay extra. He said one client had him put up 16 different swatches . . . and then never paid him. As long as it's not raining, they can paint during the winter using a special paint. He claims it's more durable so it's a good deal for us. I assumed they only work in the summer so this is a nice surprise.

SW Downing Earth with Marigold door

SW Sage Green Light with Butternut door

SW Pewter Green with Bengal Grass door

Our friend Maura warned us that we would hate the first swatches we put up, no matter how much we liked them in the visualizer. This makes sense; it always happens with interior paint colors. So we're kind of resigned to paying more for more swatches. Part of me wants to ask the painter to "surprise us" with his favorite exterior color, like you'd do with a server in a restaurant, but I know our painter won't go for it.

Considerations:

• Hot pink tree in April - May.

The bloodgood maples are always this purpley color

• Lighter colors supposedly make your house look bigger but I'm confident in the size of my house. This isn't California, I don't need to compensate.
• Future landscaping which will not include a lawn but will include a rain garden with tall grasses. I want another cryptomeria, which has a deep russet color in winter.
• HGTV claims that reds, greens, and blues fade out faster than neutrals, leaving your house looking washed out.
• We already have two pink houses on our street, so don't anybody go suggesting it. 

SW Coming Up Roses with Grounded door

Has anybody painted their house? Any mistakes you made or words of wisdom? Go ahead, get opinionated.

Front yard plans

So. The side yard with its sad weird curves, its buried oil tank, and its random mohawk of roses.

I've spent so much energy in the backyard focusing on shrubs and the structure of the yard that I haven't gotten to have a lot of fun with perennials. I've decided that this is the area where I can get my rocks off and plant any perennials that I feel like and not worry about winter interest or anything. It's going to be the lab and I'm just going to plant what looks pretty in the catalog and if it looks terrible I'll just pull it up and plant something else. Anything softening that line of roses has to be an improvement.

Don't be jealous of my MS Paint skills.

That's not a dragon, that's an approximation of the perennials I will plant and the pathway we'll put next to the driveway. I'm going to plant things that butterflies and hummingbirds like and maybe put down gravel around the pavers, which butterflies use to replenish their salts. We already have a birdbath here and a hummingbird feeder, which is being thuggishly guarded by a male.  Hopefully this should draw all the pretty critters to the area viewable from my kitchen window.

These are the plants that I'm ogling right now. The palate is kind of a mess (orange! purple! red! blue!) but I'm just going to plant them and see what happens.

There are a lot of agastaches, poppies, and penstemons and a lot of plants I saw in Scott's yard. I want to work in some grasses so if anyone has a favorite to suggest (cough*scott*cough), I'm all ears. Or if you have a great flower to suggest, let me know!

The nerve of the nature!

Squirrels are such assholes.

If you are a house blogger . . .

If you are a blogger, chances are you're either redoing your kitchen or you're pregnant. No, seriously, go look at your RSS reader. Pregnant or remodeling their kitchen or sometimes both.

I don't want babies so I'm satisfying the demands of the gods by doing the only kitchen remodel I can afford: painting the door. These pictures best show the gnarly state of our kitchen door. Dinged, dented, filthy, peeling, and just sad.

Upon taking apart the doorknob, I discovered that the previous owner had affixed it with caulk. Like the kind you use to seal your bathtub. That makes sense! I used a scraper to get the caulk off, leaving me with this mess.

I sanded everything down but I didn't have wood putty because of an unfortunate accident where my tube of wood putty hardened at the top and I squeezed too hard and the whole tube pooped out its contents from the bottom end, all over me. That's pretty much what having kids is like, right?

I wanted to get the door done before the boy returned from his work trip (Surprise! Paint fumes!) so I just painted it without filling the gauges. Enh, we'll live. I also hit up the knob with some Brasso.

It looks better, ya? Of course, now that the whole thing looks shiny and new I kind of feel like it would look better with a color. Maybe I could paint it yellow and Greg would feel better about the fact that I stole his yellow hallway from him.

Or maybe that's a bad idea.

Sherwin-Williams Daffodil

Sherwin-Williams Chartreuse

Sherwin-Williams Jonquil

The kitchen has always been tricky because the yellow counters are so cool and the floor tiles ended up being so much warmer and browner than I expected--I'm still trying to find ways to bridge the gap between the two. Regardless, I need to address the trim which still needs to be filled, sanded, and painted.

Now go double up on your birth control and get ready to pick out faucets. Or suggest paint colors for the door if you're feeling opinionated.

A very good idea

I moved the birdbath from the backyard to the driveway strip so I can see the birds playing from the kitchen window. I love watching birds in the birdbath. WHO THE HELL AM I ANYMORE?

I know I'm really going to tempt the spambots by saying this, but BUSHTITS, you guys!

They ARE bushtits, right?

I'm too old for this shit, he thinks.

And then this one gave me the stinkeye and I stopped taking pictures.

Psaltriparus minimus

I'll tell you soon about the other birdbath I bought off of craigslist for $5. It was cracked, put back together poorly, and I had to drive to Cornelius in rush hour traffic to get it. It took 2.5 hours round trip. I patched it with Liquid Nails and we'll see this weekend if it will hold water. If it does? Totally worth it.

If it won't hold water I'm declaring myself barred from using craigslist again.