the ebb and flow of the garden

Two steps forward, one back. Develop two new beds, lose another to invasive Johnson grass… So it goes down in the garden lot. Except that, this year, even with all the dead noxious overgrowth from last fall, the garden is full of life, and color. I can see the work done as much as the […]

the 16th day of christmas

As the snow arrived behind schedule, the Christmas season has been extended because this is cool:

missing the mark

Or… Learning to Forgive Myself as I Grieve Through the Holidays. Late starts can really snowball into conundrums when one is as thorough with holiday decorating as I prefer to be. Correcting bad pandemic housekeeping habits runs into early tree upping (early-because-no-less-then-three-and-each-one-takes-three-days-to-set-up). The Thanksgiving break gave me the time to catch up on trees, but […]

lighting the path

The solar chandelier needed new solar lamps. I found such a great deal at Big Lots!, a box of ten for thirty. The chandelier needs a new home, since solar edison bulbs are going up in the pergola and will be bright enough to prevent the chandelier from lighting. I liked the pathway lights so […]

the final invasion

The temperature climbed just enough. The snow is packable again! The frozen cephalopod broke through the surface of the crisp peaceful snow, laying siege to the ship on the surface, but the snow-crew was not caught unprepared. They learned from their mates’ demises in the previous attack those two years back. The harpoons were kept […]

return of the snow squid-ish

Yesterday, we got four to five inches of perfect, fluffy, wet, packing snow. I clear our walks and drive, specifically piling all the removed snow onto our retaining wall. I packed a good part of it down as I went and took some time to crave out some basic shapes. Unfortunately, today is colder and […]

let it – finally – snow

*whew* We almost made it through the entire holiday lighting season without a single day of snow. And what fun would that be? This year I added LED C-9s on ground stakes bordering some of the flower beds. This morning’s snow was enough to completely cover the faceted bulb caps, which is a neat effect. […]

light it up, part 2

“I’m quite aware of how ridiculous I am.” – Albert Goldman, The Birdcage There are three distinct whites in LED lighting: pure, warm, and cool. This is the first time I have ever used more than one in the same place. I wouldn’t call it intentional. The faceted C9 LEDs in any decent bulb count […]

light the place up!

While I’ve had trees up inside for over a month, exterior decorations are different. Our family always lit the exterior of the house on Thanksgiving weekend, and I like keeping to that tradition. I admit I’ve never started on Thanksgiving Day. Until today. Two exciting thing this year: First, I found the large LED lightbulb […]

everything but the gates…

I took advantage of a late Saturday afternoon to finish out the panels on the garden fence. The short panels were decidedly more complicated to fit, since both dimensions had to be cut down from the original 4×8 sheet. The slope down from the driveway has been a challenge throughout the project. Originally, I thought […]