It’s been another couple of weeks since the last entry; I am trying to write in the weblog more again, but success is proving elusive.

It is spring break for me this week, and Amanda took the week off so that we could work on house projects. Stuff we wanted to get down or get significant progress on are:

• new stone planter in the back
• set up vegetable garden
• remove ivy and other crap in the front trees
• plant stuff on the steep slope in front so the house doesn’t slide off the hill
• weed and clear the terraces on the eastern side of the property and plant new stuff
• set up chicken coop

Stone planter: The original thing in the back was roted and decrepit, so we tore it out earlier. We got a bunch of cement blocks, adhesive, and basically put a new planter in. It was not entirely straightforward as it is on a hill, but still not really complicated. Today we pretty much finished it up. Amanda actually did most of the work.

Garden: I had been thinking about what to do with the vegetable garden for a while. There is one area in our backyard where is pretty much has to go as there is only one area that gets enough light. Unfortunately, it is right beside our deck and on a slope. My original idea was to set up raised beds as I find them easier to deal with (as they are “higher” up from the ground) and it is less likely the plants will be affected by runoff from the driveway and deck which are uphill from the area. Making the beds wouldn’t be all that hard, but I was unsure it we could get a truck with enough dirt into alley/shared driveway behind the house. And that quantity of dirt/compost would be expensive.
Another option would be to terrace the area and plant a traditional bed. That would be less ideal, probably the same amount of work, and would require less imported dirt. I was worried about drainage and whatever, but surely I couldn’t cause that much damage (the eastern side of our property is steep and terraced with rocks; the neighboring house is perhaps 16 feet below us.

So I decided to go ahead and till the area and think about it so more. Today I rented a tiller from Home Depot in SODO and spent a couple of hours breaking up the soil. It was pretty packed and there was a lot of junk(stones, trash, etc.) in it. I did success in leveling the area out, though. Afterwards, I decided to just do a traditional bed and shore up the eastern edge with something soon (blocks, landscape timber, whatever). At the moment I am using the sides of another old planter fight erosion on that side.

Remove Ivy: Amanda tore a bunch of ivy down last weekend. I had cut a lot of the lower vines last fall to kill the orphaned ends and make them easier to pull down, but whatever type of ivy it is refused to meekly die. She did get a lot more down, though. I think we still need to get a professional arborist in to check out the trees in front, though.

Plant Stuff on the Slope/Retaining Wall/Cliff out front. Amanda investigated the front and has been looking for native plants. We are going to put native plants out there because we want something there that will go wild and not have to be maintained by us.
Weed and Clear Eastern Terraces: Amanda took a stab at this over the weekend. This will be a lot of work. We may hire a couple of people to do this for us, but perhaps we will also do it ourselves. I’d like to put grapes here, but that may be too ambitious for this year.

Set up the chicken coop: We had been doing a lot of research on the chicken coop idea, but I was leaning to just buying one because making one is not necessarily cheaper and definitely takes more time. In the end, we decided to repurpose a large dog house as a small coop and make a run to go with it. I looked on craiglist for suitable candidates, and we bought a never-used wooden one from Elena in Lynnwood (we made the exchange in a WalMart parking lot of all places). We still have to make an enclosed run and setup the inside. And get the chickens, but Amanda says we can get them from Dan the Chicken Man in Auburn. I’ll take her word for it.

Other things that have happened:

• Amanda went to the dentist today.
• We went xcounty skiing with the Kai a couple of weeks ago to try out his new skiis. He went maybe 10m and declared he didn’t like them. He spent the time playing in the snow and throwing snowballs around while Amanda and I alternated turns skiing around. I also made a snow horse and an snow alpaca with him.
• Amanda and I had a date at IKEA. A date in the sense that the Kai was old enough to go to kids area while we strolled about sans progeny and perhaps had a meal in the cafeteria. It was fun while it lasted, but the Kai did not last for all that long, so we got buzzed to pick him back up. So we had a date with him in the cafeteria.
• The scooter battery died, but I found my old charger and it is as good as new now.
• My allergies are killing me.
• I bicycled for the first time this year to the fruit stand. It wasn’t that far, but I am clearly not in bicycling shape. Although I am pleased I got up the hill (actually the whole way is uphill) without stopping. Hard to believe one year I rode around 160+ miles a week. Or that I still have and ride that bicycle which is now 16 years old (link is obviously to the current model). Of course, only the frame/fork/headset, break calipers, hubs, crank arms, some of the rear cassette, and chainrings are from the original bike, but parts do wear out.

Tomorrow there will probably we more house projects.