Droopy Things

While doing my morning walk in our Boise yard today, I noticed the number of plants abloom with hanging flowers. They are quite pretty. Their languid posture belies the fervor of spring.

These are currant flowers. Our two bushes are loaded with flowers this year, along with our gooseberry (we planted last spring). I had to move to Idaho so I could grow these -- they are outlawed in North Carolina because they are a possible vector for some pine tree disease.



This is our Harry Lauder's Walking Stick tree, also know as curly filbert.



We have lovely, massive bleeding hearts in our front yard.



Not a plant, but just as pretty. A Buddhist prayer flag that hangs in our backyard.

The Year of Bad News

This morning we received word that our former neighbor in Raleigh, Dot Smith, passed away yesterday. This marks yet another death in our lives this year. We stopped counting when the numbers reached 10.


When I bought the house on King Charles in the Longview Gardens neighborhood of Raleigh in June 2004, the first neighbors I met were Dot and Henry Smith. Dot and Henry were a couple in their 80s that you couldn't help but meet; Dot and Henry were outside working in their yard every day. And when they weren't in the yard, they were busy with their children and grandson, delivering meals on wheels, and active in their church and the neighborhood association. Dot and Henry led very full, very rich lives, and were very proud of their family. Dot and Henry built their home in Longview Gardens in 1951 and lived in it ever since.

It wasn't long before I was out in the yard all the time, too, and often worked alongside the Smiths. We helped each other trim trees and bundle yard waste, Dot helped me identify plants in the yard, and they both shared stories about the previous owners and the neighborhood. My favorite stories were about the pony that the Smiths kept in their backyard while their girls were young.

As the renovations on my house convened, Henry would pop over every day or so to see what was going on. I took great pride in showing Henry the changes in the house because he seemed to be so proud of the effort I was making. One day Henry showed up with a gift for me: it was a Craftsman hand tool he called a maddox. It is a long handled yard tool with an axe blade on one side and another blade on the other side, turned 90 degrees. He told me it would become the most useful garden tool I owned and he was right. Every time I use it, I think of Henry. In fact, Jon and I just used it a few months ago to grub out gigantic crab apple tree roots here in Boise. I remember saying at the time, "it's a good thing Henry gave me this, huh?"

Henry passed away just a few months after Jon moved into the house and Jon too, quickly grew to love the Smiths. I think Henry was pleased to have another tinkering man around. Henry passed away shortly after stubbornly trimming crepe myrtle trees in the front yard...with a chainsaw. I was a wreck at the funeral, but the Smith family was calm and composed because they have a strong religious faith and were secure that Henry was in a good place.

I truly loved Dot and Henry. After Henry died, we really looked out for Dot and did whatever we could for her, which wasn't much. She was very capable. Jon would use the weedeater on her trees and bushes because her riding lawn mower didn't get close enough. She let us pick figs and cherries from her fruit trees and we were grateful.

Dot had an awesome, underutilized four-string clothesline in her yard that abutted ours. I asked her if I could use it and she agreed. It wasn't long before she was back to using the clothesline again, and we spent many moments chatting while hanging and folding laundry. Later on, when Dot sold her mother's house to a fantastic family with a gaggle of kids, the Culpeppers used the line too. Even our neighbors Jer and Selina on the other side of us, not even next to Dot, used it. It became the social hub of all our houses. Bored? Check the clothesline. Anyone out there?

Dot was busy, but every time we knocked on her door, she always said "come in, come in." At the time we were married, she still owned her mother's house directly behind her own and she let us use it to house seven of our family members for the week. Dot talked often of her mother, which in her Carolina accent she pronounced, "muthuh." I loved to hear her say it. I loved hearing Dot call to us from across her expansive yard.

As Jer said today, "She was an amazing person that just exuded life to everyone she met, if anybody deserves a place in heaven it surely is Ms. Dot."

Roasting Peppers

After too many rounds of bad Mexican food in Boise, I declared this the year of Mexican cooking. To that end, I collected and ordered a variety of Mexican chile pepper seeds that are commonly used in Diana Kennedy's cookbook Mexican Regional Cooking: cascabel, guajillo, anaheim, poblano, jalapeno, and pasilla. Most of the peppers I grew are designed to be used after ripening and drying; I planned to use them for a myriad of tasty meals.

This year's first snow and thus first freeze came earlier than expected in Boise, while the plants were loaded with green peppers. I harvested early (early in terms of the ripeness of the fruit, not early according to the calendar--next year I will start my seeds in February instead of March) and was left with massive amounts of green peppers.

Peppers can be frozen, but I opted to roast them on the grill and then freeze them for added flavor.

Poblano peppers roasting on the grill.

Peeling the charred skins from the roasted peppers. Gloves mandatory, and careful not to wipe your, er, eyes.

The finished product.

Priorities

After more than 80 days working in Montana on our ranch I returned to Boise, and the many summer projects that need to be finished before school starts on August 25th. The list was very long a week ago, but we are crossing things off at a pretty quick rate. We've replaced a dilapidated screen door with a new Andersen glass door, replaced multiple door handles and deadbolts, power-washed the house and deck, repainted exterior doors and trim, built a bench on the deck, painted the deck, and done more yard work and weeding in the garden than one ever thought possible.

The trim repairs proved to be a bit more complicated than I expected. After removing the rotten trim I discovered a surprise; the old fascia boards were custom cut to fit together like a puzzle. To replace them would require a table saw. Off to Home Depot after doing some research on Consumer Reports. Creating the new fascia was a piece of cake with the right tools! We reevaluated some of the project priorities and decided that we needed a bench on the deck, and with the new table saw I figured I could handle it.



It was a chore to complete in the heat but we are quite pleased with our new addition!

Just as a side note, thinking of the ranch. Here's a picture of my 1965 John Deere 4020 with the loader. Althought it is nice to be home, I kind of miss the massive amount of daily labor that we managed to do every day on the ranch. I spent most of yesterday (and most of my next several days will be spent) catching up on my studies.

Scratch and Sniff

Bet you wish you could! Our yard is in full bloom; the lilacs smell so sweet.

Spring is here for sure; we've planted tomatoes and peppers!

Springing

One of the exciting things about owning an older home is discovering the garden plants for the first time. Spring is the perfect time to do so. Bulbs are rearing their heads all over our yard and so far I have identified tulip, crocus, hyacinth, and daffodil. Saddening is the lonely plant markers strewn across the yard like fallen soldiers on a battlefield. After so many years of neglect, I doubt many of them will be resurrected. I've seen tags for hollyhocks, Solomon's Seal, foxglove, salvia, and many others with names so faded they can no longer be identified.

Yellow crocus in bloom

Pink hellebore about to bloom

Nature's Paintbrush

Fall weather has come a bit sooner than I thought it would here in Boise. This year seems to be a touch cooler and wetter compared to most of the historical weather data for Boise. Hopefully this wet fall will give way to a cold and snowy winter, my snowboard is so very hungry!

Most of the landscaping in our yard has begun it's annual transformation.

The lush green leaves are quickly changing to stunning red or yellow before the cool fall wind places them onto the ground. I've been out raking once already this fall and I anticipate a few more trips to the compost bin before the first snow flies.

Not all of our plants have accepted the signal to conserve energy for winter. Our roses are still blooming and putting out new growth like crazy. I wonder if they'll respond to the hard freeze we are supposed to get tonight.

A Few Tidbits For You

We came, we saw, we bought. Thursday morning we closed on our new house. It's a great little house, about half the size of the King Charles home. As ya'll know we found another 1950s ranch (with an underground home heating oil tank that has been removed). Thursday morning we did the final walk through and accepted the property. This lot is less than half the size of our last house, with more landscaping! Check out the pictures, it's very overgrown and in dire need of some pruning.

The front and back yards are full of projects that will need the attention of Kate's green thumb. It also seems as though we've encroached upon a squirrel that doesn't take kindly to four-legged guests. The squirrel just hangs out in the trees chirping, barking, and hissing at the dogs. It's driving them mad!

Whaaaa?!?

Some of you might know that Jon regularly photo documents his daily activities using the camera on his cell phone. While diligently at work today, I received the following photos:

How exciting! Our first ripe tomato of the year, a Sungold!

How cruel! Jon is eating our first ripe tomato!

Say Cheese!

Today I decided to shoot some video around the yard. My original intent was to capture some video of Tucker in his later years, but I realized he still acts pretty young.

Typically dogs that are getting on in the years will start to show the symptoms of osteoarthritis and Tucker was no exception. A few months ago we were playing catch in the yard and the boy was really on his game, like the silver surfer of the dog world, although he had already started to require more frequent breaks. That day seemed like it might be his last "good" day of playing. He was stiff and sore after just a couple of minutes of rest and I was afraid the old standard mid-air catch was gone forever. The stiffness continued for days afterwards and Kate and I began to worry about him. We headed to the vet to make sure that he hadn't hurt something. After a few xrays our vet decided Tucker's hips were hurting him and she recommended that we start feeding him Hill's j/d. It was $60.00 for 30 pounds of kibbles. At first we thought it was pretty expensive, but check out these videos. He's running around like a 2 year old! We've realized that his food is actually pretty darn cheap.

After about 6 hours of yard-work we were pretty sure we'd be chillin out around the house rather than hitting downtown live. Check out the recreated bed in Jer & Selina's yard.

How it began

We reclaimed this bed

Do you know what this is? If you don't know what it is you may want to burn this into your memory and avoid it like the freakin' plague. You don't want to be introduced. It is Poison Ivy, and it's thick in these parts.

After a few minutes into an impromtu jam session Mike was breaking into music about Cash, our new intact pup. He'll be getting snipped just as soon as he's healed up from his heartworm treatment. I got some great video of Mike doing this little improv, priceless I tell you, just priceless!



Someone decided we would just crank up the grill and hang out in the backyard tonight. Jer grilled the bison burgers while Kate ran a freshly created chipotle butter over the corn. She surprised us with ice cream and a great local June favorite, blueberries. As you all know, Kate likes to create great food equally as much as she likes to enjoy great food. Tonight she blew us away with a fresh blueberry sauce and a nice piece of dark chocolate. It was great, unbelievably exceptional!

You know I've got to throw the odd picture from our yard in here tonight. Look at this Lily. What in the world is it doing?

What's Growing on? (June 14, 2007)

I've been rather lazy about taking pictures over the past couple of weeks and I'm not sure how that happened. Today seemed like a good day to take a few pictures and blog about what is growing at the homestead here in Raleigh. Feast your eyes on these.

Tucker is the "Alpha Dog" in this yard.
He looks pretty serious about protecting his domain doesn't he?

"I can haz Octopus?"
See the cheezburgers!

Fall Gold Raspberry Bush

Golden Sweetness

Heritage Red Raspberry Bush

Heritage Reds

Opalka Tomato

Sungold Tomato (my fav)

Super Shepherd Pepper

Blueberries

Fig Bush

Bumble Bee sleeping on Echinacea

Echinacea

Yellow Canna Lily

Fire Canna (my fav)

Pink Canna Lily

Day Lily

Butterfly Bush

Daisy

Bee Balm

Lantana

Cardoon

So, this is where we are today. Watching our beautiful gardens flourish, waiting for an offer on the house. Leaving our friends, and all the things we've worked so diligently to create. Our home and gardens will make some lucky family very happy.