Accomplishments of the Spring

The weather this year has been exceptionally wet and so it is my primary excuse for having accomplished so little. Kimberly has finished planting the raised beds (more or less), leaving me with my lone, primary task: create a new bed along the west wall in which corn, squash and beans will be planted. Aiding in the creation of this new bed has been Kimberly's birthday gift from her folks: an electric roto-tiller (tip of the hat to Terry).

Even after learning that this wonderful device works even more wonderfully against sod when half the teeth are removed, there was still a fair amount of sweat involved. Visitors may remember a couple of bushes along that west fence. It is worth mentioning that pulling the stump of a tree is a fair bit easier than pulling a bush (in my experience). Once the stumps were up and out and the grass ground down, I lay some recycled two by material in for a border and set out to get some fill dirt. It took most of a yard to fill the new bed, the rest tucked into the other beds.

The finishing touches before planting were 8" extenders for the existing sprinkler heads and a 'dog proof' fence which Cooper broke through a day after I'd planted. And plant I did. At the northern end are a variety of sunflowers. Then there are three parallel N/S rows of corn in which four varieties of corn are evenly divided. Three of the four are popcorn, the final fourth sweet corn. A couple days ago I lightly sprinkled some straw over the top to help hold moisture in and tonight I have found my first corn leaf(s) poking up.

There have been a couple other bullets on my action item list this spring which the wet weather of late and the future warm weather have helped drive. Two weeks ago we reduced the size of the dog run dramatically, eliminating the eastern two thirds by tying the fence in to the corner of the house. This help speed up a recent goal of mine to 'pave' the dog run, thereby eliminating the muddy paw prints through the house on rainy days. Additionally I have always thought it would be good to shade the run as much as possible. With the new, smaller footprint, it seemed to me that both of these (admittedly minor) goals were pretty feasible.

The traditional pavers available around here run, at the cheapest, $1.55 a square foot. However, after digging a little I discovered that Home Depot had cinder block capstones for $0.79. They are 8x16, which is a little more interesting anyway, and nearly half the price. In this picture you can see the progress I have made to date which is about 1/3 of the total. I can't say that digging up 'rich' soil has been my favorite task, but neither is mopping floors.

And in the fore are three honeysuckle which I hope to nurse up into an as-yet unmade pergola which will provide the aforementioned shade. For those of you who have ever wondered just how geeky I am, check this out. In order to determine just how high and wide to make my pergola, I used Excel with the 'Solver' add-in. The variables which I allowed Solver to adjust were the height above ground, the overall width of the canopy and the amount it hung over the dog run. The constraints I fed it were the width of the run and ranges for the angle of altitude on the north and south edges of the run. I targeted a range in the spring that would have the run starting to receive shade between May 15 and May 31, as well as a range which would have the run starting to receive full sun between Oct 15 and Oct 31. Long story short, the pergola will be 9 feet above the ground, 8 feet from north to south with 5 feet hanging directly over the run. Thank you Solver and Professor Yinyu Ye.

Finally, at the same time I was looking for vines with which to get my dogs some shade, I was also looking for some to create a sort of privacy screen for the planter area in the carport. I would have preferred to use the built in planter but I have been assured that perennials cannot over-winter in planters... and I'd rather not plant something more than once if I don't have to. So I picked a pair of clematis to put along side the house and I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will get enough sunlight to survive. And rather than crush them into the gravel driveway I went ahead and made yet another bed of sorts using recycled redwood. The distance from the wall is about the same as the projection of the gas meter on the other side of the gate, natch.