Odds & Ends

It has been awhile since I posted and I am laying the blame on a virus...computer that is.  But all is well again thanks to my son and his CEH friend.   I thought I'd begin with a post on some scattered projects.

First of all I'll show you a couple paint jobs that needed doing while the weather was still bearable.

This picture was taken of the back porch after the replacement siding was up and painted.  It is a little difficult to see here but the deck is stained a bluish color and the siding on the porch is green.  If you look closely you can see that the steps leading up to the French doors are new lumber as is the trim around the lattice under the porch. 

The new lumber needed to be stained and I wanted it to be similar to the siding.  Here we go again.  Yes, I restained the entire deck a little at a time.  We had a warm spell so I stained a little in the early morning and a little more at dusk.  This continued for several days until, finally, I could check that off as completed.

I knew I wanted to change the color of the studio door as well.  "One thing leads to another" should be the inscription on my tombstone.  I always liked this color because it complimented the shingles so well, but, with the changes to the back porch it no longer connected.

The most logical color was charcoal.

 I was not totally satisfied with the results and contemplated painting it again in another color.

However, I am becoming more comfortable with it now, and there are more pressing projects.

This chair did not sell at my garage sale.

It was an alley find that I striped down to bare bones.  Then it fell to the bottom of a long list of projects.  I realized it was going to be too expensive to restore this one.  I thought I might entice someone else to take it on, but when that didn't happen...

I painted it orange.

And put it in the corner of my yard.

With great relief, I can now cross that project off my list.  I'm thinking some purple morning glories might be nice to fill in the back.

With all the rain we have had there seems to be no end to the trimming.  I have buzzed the fire bushes, cut back the dogwood, and trimmed some of the ivy away from the 14 windows on the house it affects.  I'm doing what I can to keep up but there is still one project that is haunting me.

 

Originally this was Vinca vine, tulips and day lilies.  Then the Vinca went crazy and so did the most horrible prickly weeds.  Too much to weed with 23 days over a 100 degrees last year.

 

I thought suffocating it and starting over might be the way to go.  I left the butterfly bush and the monkey grass out of it for now.

 

 

The rest got black plastic therapy.  It is slowly doing what it was supposed to be doing, but the "every other day" rain storms are not really helping.

It may have to stay like this until I come up with an easy maintenance landscaping idea. (exactly what Vinca Vine is know for..prolific, easy maintenance ground cover)  I'm wide open for better suggestions.
 FYI: I usually cut the monkey grass once a year in the early Spring.  Not sure what to do with it this year. It is barely June and it is billowing out of the ground and spreading way too fast.

That's my update on the outdoor activities except for planting flowers in all the containers and keeping them watered.  Next post we will go back inside where hopefully I will have material for a fresh post.