Finding the Path
Mar. 8th, 2010 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieAnother crazed weekend after a super-busy week. Do I have any other sort? Probably not, at least not in springtime.
Saturday featured insanely nice and unseasonably warm weather, so quite naturally I spent the morning climbing indoor rock walls with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monkeybard. I did not suck quite as much as I did the last time, but I still am quite terrible at it (not to mention still quite phobic). My arms and shoulders and hands weren't thrilled with me afterwards, either. But it was a super-nice day, so aching limbs or not, I spent a good deal of the rest of it out in the yard, getting various weeding and yardwork chores done. I weeded out the side bed under the dwarf pine, and tidied up some of the beds, and then decided that I really needed to do something about the stepping stones in the backyard.
You see, when I moved into this place, I noticed that there were three relatively small (and by small, I mean somewhere between hand-sized and foot-sized) stepping stones in the backyard, leading from what was then an unadored gap in the beds to the sidewalk. The stones were placed in such a way that they possibly were meant to indicate the direction of the patio, but they petered out pretty quickly, and they were small, and I didn't really want to encourage random foot traffic through my yard anyway. So I mostly ignored them.
Since that time, I have put up a gate and trellis in the gap, to both beautify the gap and to further discourage random foot traffic crossing through my yard. I also use the patio more, or at least I do in the summer. But the stepping stones were even harder to see than before, thanks to the encroaching grass. Don't believe me? Then find the stepping stone in this picture:
You see what I mean? The three stones were almost completely lost to view. So I decided I really should clear away the grass, just to highlight them. I wasn't expecting much, but it might look nice with the gate.
It turned into quite the project. It turned out that the first "foot sized" stepping stone was considerably larger than I had realized. So were its two friends.
Not to mention its five other cousins, who were COMPLETELY hidden under the lawn.fisherbear came out to check up on me, and was just as fascinated by the archeological discovery and unearthing as I was. He pitched in, and between the two of us, we completely unearthed the long-lost path that leads from the sidewalk to the patio.
I'm guessing the path is original to the house or thereabouts. I can only assume that the former owners (who were pretty serious gardners in their own way, judging by the beds I inherited) stopped keeping it cleared years ago - probably as they got older and yard work started to be a problem - and that it's been oh, maybe thirty years since the path saw daylight like this. Maybe more.
And I had no idea that this path was there until this weekend. The joys of owning a 70+ year-old garden; you never know what you're going to find. Gardening sometimes turns into archeology. And sometimes I find treasures. Yay!
Sunday was much colder and more seasonally appropriate than Saturday, which is to say increasingly cloudy and threatening to rain. So naturally, after spin class, I spent a good chunk of it outdoors, this time with Jake, building a cold frame for her yard. She's going to start a bunch of veggies from the seeds that we bought. It was quite a bit of fun, drilling the holes and turning boards into cold-frame-box. We also cloched up some of her plants, as the forecasters are threatening snow and freezing temperatures later in the week.
Yeah, welcome to spring.
I got home in just enough time to change and head over to LawyerLady's place for her annual Oscar-watching party. It was a lovely, low-key affair. My only regret was that I had to do some more work-work after the party was over, so I stayed up rather later than I should have. But it was very much worth it!
Saturday featured insanely nice and unseasonably warm weather, so quite naturally I spent the morning climbing indoor rock walls with
monkeybard. I did not suck quite as much as I did the last time, but I still am quite terrible at it (not to mention still quite phobic). My arms and shoulders and hands weren't thrilled with me afterwards, either. But it was a super-nice day, so aching limbs or not, I spent a good deal of the rest of it out in the yard, getting various weeding and yardwork chores done. I weeded out the side bed under the dwarf pine, and tidied up some of the beds, and then decided that I really needed to do something about the stepping stones in the backyard.You see, when I moved into this place, I noticed that there were three relatively small (and by small, I mean somewhere between hand-sized and foot-sized) stepping stones in the backyard, leading from what was then an unadored gap in the beds to the sidewalk. The stones were placed in such a way that they possibly were meant to indicate the direction of the patio, but they petered out pretty quickly, and they were small, and I didn't really want to encourage random foot traffic through my yard anyway. So I mostly ignored them.
Since that time, I have put up a gate and trellis in the gap, to both beautify the gap and to further discourage random foot traffic crossing through my yard. I also use the patio more, or at least I do in the summer. But the stepping stones were even harder to see than before, thanks to the encroaching grass. Don't believe me? Then find the stepping stone in this picture:
You see what I mean? The three stones were almost completely lost to view. So I decided I really should clear away the grass, just to highlight them. I wasn't expecting much, but it might look nice with the gate.
It turned into quite the project. It turned out that the first "foot sized" stepping stone was considerably larger than I had realized. So were its two friends.
Not to mention its five other cousins, who were COMPLETELY hidden under the lawn.
fisherbear came out to check up on me, and was just as fascinated by the archeological discovery and unearthing as I was. He pitched in, and between the two of us, we completely unearthed the long-lost path that leads from the sidewalk to the patio.I'm guessing the path is original to the house or thereabouts. I can only assume that the former owners (who were pretty serious gardners in their own way, judging by the beds I inherited) stopped keeping it cleared years ago - probably as they got older and yard work started to be a problem - and that it's been oh, maybe thirty years since the path saw daylight like this. Maybe more.
And I had no idea that this path was there until this weekend. The joys of owning a 70+ year-old garden; you never know what you're going to find. Gardening sometimes turns into archeology. And sometimes I find treasures. Yay!
Sunday was much colder and more seasonally appropriate than Saturday, which is to say increasingly cloudy and threatening to rain. So naturally, after spin class, I spent a good chunk of it outdoors, this time with Jake, building a cold frame for her yard. She's going to start a bunch of veggies from the seeds that we bought. It was quite a bit of fun, drilling the holes and turning boards into cold-frame-box. We also cloched up some of her plants, as the forecasters are threatening snow and freezing temperatures later in the week.
Yeah, welcome to spring.
I got home in just enough time to change and head over to LawyerLady's place for her annual Oscar-watching party. It was a lovely, low-key affair. My only regret was that I had to do some more work-work after the party was over, so I stayed up rather later than I should have. But it was very much worth it!
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 07:13 pm (UTC)As for climbing, better than sucking less at it, I'd say you did very well for your second outting!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 03:45 am (UTC)