So Much Rain... So Many Critters

Well the past weekend was a wash out... I did actually manage to mow the grass between showers on Saturday, but ended up inside all day on Sunday due to weather. Not the most enjoyable spring on record, but LUCKILY there's plenty to do inside too! If you haven't been keeping tabs, be sure to check out my other blog tracking the progress of our 1840 house renovation here: Between These Walls.

ANYWAY enough complaints about rain... these guy's don't seem to mind....

Hatchlings in the gutter.

I got up on the ladder to try and fix one section of gutter on the back of the house and was surprised to find these little guys hanging out in the corner. I'm pretty sure they are baby turtle doves. We have a couple of pairs hanging out around the place. There are some robins and sparrows nesting in the vicinity as well, but from the looks of their beaks I'm thinking the are doves. Hopefully being at the end of the gutter they'll be staying pretty dry over the 5 days of rain this week... Fingers crossed.

In other news... just when we were thinking we were getting close to being done with nuisance rodents... this guy was spotted out back moseying around the yard...

Playing Possum  

Not the greatest photo. It was getting dark and raining (of course) but we managed to catch up with him in time to snap this photo while he headed off into the woods in the back. He seemed completely oblivious to us.  In other news... there was a confirmed sighting of ANOTHER full-size groundhog in the yard. This one has a den somewhere near the windmill... so there will be more trapping to do apparently. Ahhhhh City Living!

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Simple Beginings

Where to start? That's the question that's facing me at just about EVERY turn around here... The answer is never easy... it depends so much on the weather, my mood, the budget, the inspiration, and so many other factors. When it comes to the garden though it's pretty clear that the focus this year has to be on working through a decade or more of deferred maintenance and overgrown untended landscaping.

Using that as a jumping off point I'm starting at the very front of the property and working back from there. My initial project (posted last week) the pond was suspended temporarily due to the fact that I ended up with a NASTY case of poison ivy. Since there's poison almost EVERYWHERE I decided that I wouldn't press my luck and I'll wait until this clears up before I attempt more work over there. I shifted focus to restoring some of the damage done by the trucks and equipment used to remove the big trees. Part of that means rehabbing the front lawn and bringing some definition to the front planting beds.

Left side of the porch from the front walk.

The most immediate need was to create some definition between the planting beds where the ferns are popping up with a vengeance, and the lawn on the left side of the walk. The ferns were growing out way into the yard so those were cut back, but the lawn itself was pretty torn up by all of the traffic. I decided to install a mowing strip of concrete pavers salvaged from elsewhere on the property to create a break between the yard and planting beds. While the house is very boxy and square, I decided to go with a curved bed which will extend from the front walk around to the side walk.

View from east side.

I started from the east side installing the pavers and loosening and leveling the soil which had been very compacted and rutted out. I finished about the first quarter or so and managed to get grass planted back in the adjoining section of the yard.  Once the pavers are in and the yard is totally back in shape I'll work on cleaning out the beds. For this year all I may get done is getting rid of the ivy and mulching, but we'll see!

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