Mason Bee Harvest

 Our friend Liesl came by this evening and helped us harvest our mason bee tubes. It was fascinating to see the process of unwrapping the tubes. There were quite a few pests that had invaded the tubes, but we still had a good number of cocoons for next year. We think we started with 75 cocoons this past spring and we ended up with 182 good ones for next year.

I'm hoping to make at least one more bee house for the front yard by next spring. We have so much scrap wood, we should be able to make at least one more.

Jeff installed the new shed step this weekend.

I finally finished sifting all our hardware and fasteners and the bins have moved out to the garage wall, at least temporarily until we build a better storage rack.

And we got nearly all the bulbs planted. There's just 10 more left. I'll likely get those done tomorrow.

Built Shed Steps

Jeff finally had time to work on our shed step project. These were built with pressure-treated plywood and 2x4s leftover from building our shed.

He built it much better than what I designed. The steps I designed probably would have fallen apart much more quickly because he would have been screwing it into the edge of plywood. He added blocking and screwed all the pieces into it. 

I am going to stain it with the green stain I used on the stools before we install it in front of the shed but I'd prefer to paint outside and the forecast is for rain until Thursday. I'll be hoping for some sun later this week so I can finish this project.

Shed Organized

Since we've been emptying out the left wall of the garage we had some extra racks that needed to find a new home. We decided to see if they'd fit into the shed. Shockingly, we had never really moved into the shed. We'd originally built it because I wanted to get chickens again, but now I'm not sure we will. We've spent a lot of money on plants, and I'm not sure I'm willing to have them turn into expensive chicken food.

Anyway, the shed was still full of construction debris and misc. chicken stuff we dumped in there after the guys cleaned up behind the garage. We finally cleaned it out. We're going to have to do a dumps run, but we moved those racks in and started putting garden supplies out there. 

That insulation and OSB were just leftover bits we had kicking around
in the garage. We figured we may as well install it all in the shed.

Using Up Pavers

Almost a month ago we discovered a bunch of really thick pavers that ran along the edge of the old driveway. Jeff dug them out and removed them and they sat only a few feet away until yesterday.

I asked Jeff if he would please make a little path of them from the stairs to the backyard shed. I was expecting him to just carry them over and plop them down and call it good. That's not how Jeff rolls.

He would have preferred to buy some gravel to level them, but I told him not to bother. I'm hoping to be able to plant groundcover around the stones. If necessary, we'll bring in some gravel later and re-lay them.

This concludes the path between the back door and shed. We can now, in theory, get from the house to the shed without stepping in mud.

I would still like to make a new step to get into the shed. I have a plan, but we haven't had the motivation to make it.

Oh, and this happened on Saturday. Our plants appear to have survived, but the daffodils all got flattened by the weight of the snow.

Fall is Here!

It's not just a clever name. There are so many leaves in our yard right now. I hope we have another couple dry days so we can clean up the yard. As the outdoor season draws to a close, I thought it would be fun to look back at the progress we made in the yard this summer.

In May/June, Jeff planted the parking strip.

This is how it looked when initially planted

This is how it looks today. The plants that lived seem really happy.

Project Updates

I was really psyched when Jeff found a Crandall Clove Currant I wanted for the Hidden Garden at Portland Nursery this past weekend — on clearance!! It was marked down to $13 from $26, but when we paid for it, it was an additional 50% off. We only paid $6.50 for a 2-gallon pot! It was the last one, so its shape was sort of ugly, but I am hopeful that next year it will fill out and Jeff will be able to prune it into a better shape.

As we were leaving, I spied a clearance area. I didn't know they had a clearance area! I found a whole tray of unusual ferns for $3/ea in 4-inch pots. Yeah, we took those home too. And three bleeding hearts that were also marked down 50%.

Most of the ferns went in under the black walnut tree which has now been double dug. (The ugly blue tarp is covering the last of the black walnut mulch that the guys still need to finish spreading around the shed.)

The black walnut pruning really opened up the planter to more sun. I do hope it lasts for at least a few years.

Yes, that is sun you see so we did some painting on the shed. It's not done, but it's close. Yesterday, Jeff finished painting the brackets while I did the first coat on the door/window trim.

Today, while Jeff was doing a big cook day, I finished the second coat of green on the windows and a second coat on the white trim. Jeff still needs to finish painting the edge boards on the roof line.

We need one more day of dry, reasonably warm weather to finish. Tomorrow the forecast is rain, but hopefully, the weather forecast will be accurate and Wednesday and Thursday will be sunny. I'll be so relieved to finally finish this project.

Shed Painting Started

I was planning to wait and post photos when we finally finished this project, but with the way our weather has been behaving, I'm not sure we're going to get it finished before next spring. Though, now that I have the windows masked, I am hoping for at least one day of decent weather so I can get those painted too.

Right after I took this photo yesterday afternoon, before we could even finish cleaning up the painting tools, some random thundercloud came by and hailed/rained on it. I guess we can be thankful that we had finished by then.

This morning, I went out to survey the damage. It looks fine; the very last thing we painted would benefit from some touchup.

It Rained :(

Jeff and Aaron managed to fill all the nail holes and do more priming on Friday. I painted the first coat of paint on the door.

Since it started raining on Saturday, we didn't get to start putting the paint on. Instead, we did a bit of garage organizing.

I managed to clear off the big workbench and sanded off all the marks and sealed it with two coats of the Daly's Seafin' Ship'N Shore leftover from the planting table.

I've spent several hours now sifting misc. boxes into the large sterilite tubs and the piles of loose stuff are diminishing. Here is how the garage looks at the end of day today.

We obviously still have a lot of work ahead of us. LOL

Painting Weather

The weather has finally cooled off and we have several days of weather with low risk of rain in the forecast so today—finally—we got to work on priming the garden shed. Once Aaron arrived to help Jeff, I wandered off to my own painting project.

I think unless we get rain, we'll be able to finish painting this by the end of the weekend.

I nearly finished up painting the galvanized iron patio furniture. Jeff wanted more copper on it, so I painted all the cornucopias in the copper paint. I need to do a bit of touch up with green paint, but I'm quite happy with how it looks.

Merry Christmas All

I hope all our friends and followers are having a nice holiday season. We're having a pretty quiet month so far. For the first time in over a decade, I actually managed to put up a little six-foot tree. We don't really celebrate the holiday anymore, but I do enjoy the colorful lights to brighten up our gray weather.

On the house front, I am still futzing around with the shed windows. We discovered that not only were they put in upside down, they were put in backwards (with the inside facing out). Jeff removed them and I spent a day trying to remove the old glazing compound. I'm not sure what they used, but it's like cement. I honestly don't think it was actually window glazing compound. I'm not sure what it is, but it is very hard to remove and I'm worried I'm going to break the glass panes trying to get it all off.

Garden Shed is Sided

We still need to finish installing the little chicken door and the interior wall, but the exterior is complete!

I might have installed the windows flipped with the small panes on top, but it will be fine. LOL

Between the heat and smoke and ash falling on the city, our weather really stinks. Hopefully it cools down next week so we can stand to work outside again.

Shed Progress

I'm pretty happy about having progress again.

Tim's bid was a bit more than we wanted to pay, but no doubt reasonable for the time and material. He's a good, fair guy. I have to laugh though because there are four of them out there today and when I look, it seems like there are two of them measuring and cutting and two standing around watching. I don't think they'll be finishing it today, so they'll be back after the holiday.

We're about to have out of town guests for the long weekend, so we're trying to get some housework done. Ugh.

Here's where they left off at the end of the day. It's starting to look like a little house!

The chickens' door

Shed Progress

The guys have made some progress on the coop/shed, but I've been too lazy to make it outside to take pictures. We are obviously on the take-all-summer building plan. Jeff and I need to go buy cedar bevel siding so they can do the next part.

Fortunately, the weather has cooled down. We continue to make slow progress on clearing out our basement.

Tomorrow, we are having a plumber out to install another spigot on the outside of the house. We're hoping it will make it more convenient to keep the backyard watered.

Roofing Installed

And they finally finished installing the shingles!

Some of the shingles appear tannish in color; that is because they have been sitting around unpackaged in our basement for around five years and they are dusty. They were leftover from our house reroofing. That discoloration will hopefully wash off in the next rain.

Our weather bounced up from the 60s to 70s last week to the 90s this week. Ugh. I had planned to have a garage sale this Saturday, but I cannot do it when it's that hot. I am barely functional when it gets over 85℉. You'll find me hiding out in the basement, hopefully sifting boxes for a later garage sale rather than playing Elder Scrolls.

Update: Here is where they stopped at the end of the day.

Allegedly, they are also planning to work on it tomorrow morning until it gets too hot.

Not Much Progress

The last time Erik was out to work on our shed was Jun 2, but here it is Jun 18 and only half the roofing has been installed. In fairness, we had a bunch of rain last week and he, understandably, doesn't want to work on ladders when it's wet out. I assume he has some other more important job, but I'm not thrilled about having the tar paper getting rained on.

Aaron has been out a couple of times to help hang the plywood on the walls, but his bicycle business has gotten really busy this year so he hasn't been available much this spring.

On the bright side, with all this rain, our transplanted ferns are delighted.

And some of the new bleeding hearts from Breck's are looking like they'll make it. We probably won't see flowers until next year, but I'm glad they'll get established this year.

Progress on Shed

Finally, another day of work happened. It got really hot, but at least it wasn't raining, for a nice change. Today they starting framing the door and windows and the roof.

Installing the brackets. I actually bought these on sale last fall from VanDyke's Restorers. They are called Restorers Rustic Merced Arts & Crafts Outlooker Bracket. They match our house pretty well, though I don't like the groove they cut into them (I didn't notice it in the picture at the website when I ordered them).

 Here's where they left off for the day.

We're hopeful the weather will hold and they'll get the roof on this week.