Biscuit's Stakeout

Since Biscuit moved in I've grown pretty used to toys being strewn all over my living room.  She's actually the first dog I've had that played with toys.  My other dogs never really showed any interest.

In the last week or so I've noticed that my living room was a lot neater than usual.  Maybe only one or two toys on the ground.  I also noticed she was wandering out of the living room for long periods of time.  Turns out she's started a new playroom in my dining room.

She had nine toys moved up by the front window.  She now sits up there for hours staring at the squirrels in the front yard.  It's become an obsession.  She's normally sitting on the bench but I couldn't catch her in action.

Luckily she's only barked a few times and that was at a cat.  She just likes to spy on the squirrels.  Weirdo. 

He Was Framed!

This weekend I finally found the perfect frame for my portrait of Pablo.

 I have been on a mission for a big gaudy carved frame that was gold and slightly obnoxious.  Mission accomplished!

Now, this frame is a hair too big but the price was right so I grabbed it.  I found it at an antique shop down on Industrial  Riverfront.  It is orginally from Belgium. When the picture is centered in the frame there is about 1/2 a centimeter around the entire canvas.  I'm thinking I should be able to fix this by building an inner moulding frame and then painting it. 

The frame itself sits up from the wall about 3" and adds about 5" all the way around.  It's much more fabulous in person.  Pablo is quite excited.  You know who's not excited?  Stewart.  He has been told that he will not get his portrait added to the gallery until he stops eating my pillows.



You may remember this pillow from yesterday's post.  It's one of my brand new ones, and it was slaughtered yesterday while I toiled away at the office trying to earn enough money to afford Stewart's fancy grain-free dog food that he goes through like it's going out of style.  But I'm not bitter.

Front Yard Cleanup

It took all weekend but my front yard is finally coming together.  I started my weekend by tackling the squiggly cleanup.  It took a couple of hours and 8 large yard bags.

I raked and swept as much as I could into piles in my driveway before bagging  it all up.  It was a very impressive amount of squiggly debris.  I pulled a bunch of weeds while I was at it.

After it was all bagged up, the mulched part of my yard was looking clean, but was lacking most of its mulch.

Nothing a trip to Home Depot couldn't fix.  Luckily my Home Depot nursery has a drive thru area for dirt, mulch, stones, etc.  I just pulled up to the type I wanted and they loaded them straight in the car.  Then I drove around to the checker who scanned my trunk and took my credit card.  So easy!  It was like ordering a Big Mac.

I got 8 bags of brown mulch for the front yard and 3 bags of red for the back yard.  I started with added a bag and a half to the small front bed with my boxwoods in it.  It has always just been ugly grey dirt so the mulch really helped.

Next I spread the remaining mulch in the front yard.  I ended up a bag or so short but I had enough to really make a big impact.  Now all I have left to mulch is that small area I missed and the long flower bed along the front.  I'll probably need about 5 more bags total.

I managed to tick off this little guy.  He showed up right after I was finished and was digging around furiously.  Apparently he was trying to remember where he had buried things now that I had covered everything up.


Sorry, dude!



May the Gardening Begin!

Thanks to a beautiful weekend, I finally got my garden finished and planted.  I added a 40lb bag of some sort of Humus/manure organic compost concoction to give myself a little more depth.  I picked up six 4' wood slats at Home Depot.  Unfortunately I really needed them to be an inch or two longer each so that they would lay atop my garden bed.

My slats perfectly layed inside my bed.  Not good.  Luckily I was able to nail them from the side, hovering slightly above the dirt level.

This configuration should work just as well.  I bought 12 plants and 4 seed packets to make up my garden and layed them out based on how much room I thought they would need (but I could be totally wrong since this is my first stab at growing veggies). 

The majority of my plants came in little biodegradable pots that went right into the ground (minus the plastic wrappers).  I'm a little concerned about how I planted the seeds and if I planted too many but I guess when they start growing I can thin them out?  No idea.  I'm going to play that one by ear.  My tomatoes are along the back and I bought support stakes for them.  I may need to swap these out for more of a trellis structure.  Not sure about that either. 

It looks great so far!  Here's a chart of what I planted. 

My ornamental Thai Hot Peppers are supposedly edible and not just ornamental.  And I've already used some of my Apple Mint in my tea this morning!  I should start seeing some harvestable fruits by mid May, lasting throughout the summer.  I'm sure I will keep you well informed on the progess as I'm quite obsessed with this little project.  I'm hoping the critters leave my garden alone.  I'm looking at you sneaky squirrel.

In the meantime I'll just be kicking back, trying to learn more about my new hobby.