So Many Projects.... Part One

We have been as busy as the bees around Heart's Ease Cottage. So busy that this poor little blog has been sorely neglected. Several projects are coming to a close and the gardens are in full flush, so I thought I had better take a few minutes and catch you up on what has been going on.

For many years, Da and I have been planning a deck on the east side of our house. Until late last fall that project has been on hold due to foundation work that needed to be done and drainage pipes that had to be installed. As in most projects the "ground work" takes as long as the actual project, or longer... For some reason the foundation work was the point where our foot was nailed to the floor. It was daunting, the thought of grubbing around under the house, (too much of that during reconstruction after Hurricane Hugo), forming and pouring a footer in tight spaces, and getting someone to lay up the brick, just kept us looking elsewhere for projects that needed to be done. But then the frame on the glass door started leaking and needed to be replaced, but the foundation work needed to be done before we could replace the door, so we finally had to swallow deep and just do it. It wasn't so bad once we got started.

Da mixes 16, 80 pound bags of cement by hand...Oh, his aching back!

I work the cement into the form, level and smooth the footer surface as well as abrade most of the skin on my forearms and elbows.

With the digging, forming, mixing, pouring, tamping, leveling and smoothing behind us, we can now turn to our mason to lay the brick and put our energies into a final plan for the deck. We have had a nebulous idea of what we wanted for a deck, but when it came time to actually decide what we were building it wasn't as straight forward as we thought it would be. We had to think outside of our original plans to come up with something that fit the space, gave us a nice place to sit and enjoy the gardens but also gave us a mud and mess barrier from the gardens to the inside of the house. Finally, we had a plan and our carpenter extraordinaire George, was scheduled to help Da put the deck in.

Da and George screwing down the decking.

The deck base and railing framework went up very quickly. The pergola was put in place and roofed with clear, heavy gauge, corrugated plastic roofing to allow protection from the weather without cutting out all the light. At this point, We needed to take a break for a couple weeks while I contemplated the design for the deck railing and made the master patterns.

The rails are up and the pergola covered, now what to do about the railing....

A view of the herb garden expansion from our new deck.

I wanted a railing that didn't block the view of our herb garden from the house or from our sitting area on the deck. I also wanted to embellish the railing with hearts, as a nod to the name of our sweet little cottage. So at every opportunity I would sit on the deck or at the kitchen table and look out at the garden area, trying to imagine what my ideas would look like in real life. My solution was to purchase some of the spindles I was thinking of using and to make a kraft paper scale model of my heart motif and then set them in place and continue sitting viewing the gardens until I was satisfied that I had what I wanted. The next step in the process was going to be very labor intensive, so I didn't want to commit it to wood until I was sure I was going to be happy with it.

Once the decision was made, we scheduled time for George to come and help me make my dreams a reality. I designed and cut out a paper template with two patterns one for the large sections and one for the narrower entry sections. George used these paper patterns to make a plywood template that he would use to cut out my Heart's Ease motifs. It took a couple of tries to get it just right, George was very patient with me as I looked over his shoulder and made on site modifications... Once I was happy with the panel,  George used the final template and cut out all my Heart's Ease panels. My heart was doing flips as I watched the first panels go up. It was just as I had envisioned it in my mind, only better!

Cutting out the paper pattern that will be used to make the wooden template for my railing panels

Making the template from my craft paper pattern. The template will not only be used to cut the pattern, but will hold all the boards in place while cutting.

The spindles and panels being put in place on the deck. Oh! How exciting!!! I think it looks great!

This project started last fall with the foundation work, the deck went in during April, and now it is mid July. It took awhile but the deck construction is completed. But I still have a lot of work to do, I need to sand the panels and go around all the heart panels and use a Dremel tool to clean up any rough edges on the motifs before I paint. Then of course, I need to stain the deck floor and caulk and paint the railing and pergola but the deck is now in use and I am enjoying every minute I can squeeze in out there.

The second part of this project is the expansion of the herb garden, followed by the construction of a large pergola cover for my vintage 1957 camper and the continuation of a privacy fence/kiwi trellis that will go behind the herb garden expansion. That work will commence next week. Once the camper pergola is done, we will pour a patio across the walk from the deck. That will finish off the east side of the house projects for this year... whew! I get tired just talking about it!

A view of the completed deck as of yesterday. Now all I need to do is get it painted!

Part two of this post, the herb garden expansion, will be coming up next...

Be sure to stop by for a visit again, and as always I would love to hear from you, so feel free to leave a comment! Until next time!

What is going on at Heart's Ease Cottage

This summer has been an unusual one. We have been deluged with rain. We had rain every day for almost 30 days. Not just a little rain... constant rain, heavy rain, more rain than we usually see in a a whole year! One of my four 25 foot beds of tomatoes drowned, many other crops fared poorly as well. We lost the cabbages to an onslaught of slugs that used the rain to cloak their activities, the kale and chard rotted from all the moisture... sigh. But the constant rain seems to have passed, and the ground has dried out a bit, so there is hope for what is left in the garden.

I am harvesting blueberries and tomatoes regularly. As I sit here writing I can smell the tomatoes in the dehydrator, they smell wonderful!  I dehydrate all of our veggies at 115 degrees, so that they remain "raw", with all their enzymes and nutrients intact. I will vacuum seal them as soon as they come out of the dehydrator to protect them from moisture. These tomatoes will be used in many of our meals during the colder months when fresh tomatoes are not available.

The blueberries have been plentiful on the bush but sadly, we lost a lot of them during all the rain. Many of the ripe berries were knocked to the ground by the rains before I could get them picked. Even though we lost a lot of the berries, I still have picked 25 lbs. of berries and have probably that many more still ripening on the bushes. We should have plenty for the table, some for the freezer and some for sharing with friends and neighbors. Even if it is not as many as we usually have it will be enough.

The flowers and herbs have survived the wet conditions and I have been making lovely bouquets for us to enjoy, (yes, I used herbs in my flower bouquets!). I have been cutting the parsley every couple of days for adding to our juicing and as soon as the Sabbath is over I will pick basil to make pesto. The tarragon has pretty much taken over one end of the bed it is planted in, while waiting for it's permanent home to be available, (we are doing some long needed foundation work on the east side of the house where the herb garden resides, so some of the plants had to be temporarily relocated, more on that project later in this post).

The kitchen herb garden is in full bloom with the Rudbekia taking center stage. This garden has been a little hard to access since we have dug out a fair chunk of the walkway access and have supports and plastic sheeting up to protect our 3 foot deep trench from filling with water from all the rain. But I have still managed to keep it weeded, and snip and pick herbs for eating, even with all the construction mess in the way. The comfrey that I planted this year seems to be happy and I have harvested our first batch of stevia. It is in tincture and will be ready for use in a couple of weeks.

The butterflies have shown up in force this year. They spend their days sailing over the gardens, snacking on nectar from the zinnias and buddleia. They look like floating flowers from my vantage point on the deck.

As I was cutting parsley the other day to be juiced with the carrots and other veggies, I noticed this little fella munching away on my parsley. It is a Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar. They show up every year to help keep my parsley and dill well pruned. With their voracious appetite they can make quick work of a patch of parsley, so I always try to plant double the amount I will use, to make sure that we both have all the parsley we can eat!

 If you gently stroke the caterpillar on the back while he is munching, it will give off the scent of chamomile and little orange antlers will appear out of the top of its head and wave a warning at you. I am not sure what the scent and antlers do to deter predators, but I think they are adorable! I love to provoke them, (just a little....) so that they will "threaten" me!

We have been trying to get some foundation work done since January. Actually we have been trying to get it done since the reconstruction after Hugo in 1989, but there was so much to do back then and afterwards life took over and there was no time for such a project until recently. So Da began digging out the area in January, got the footer form built to pour the cement and shortly after was hit with a huge project at work. This project waylaid his efforts until yesterday. Yesterday there was no rain in the forecast so we jumped at the chance to mix, pour and level out sixteen 80 lb. bags of cement.

 Da calculated that he lifted about a ton and a half  yesterday, between the toting bags in and out of the car and to the work area. I wore the skin off both knees and elbows crawling around in tight spaces, moving , tamping and leveling cement. It was hot, hard work, but it is finally done and so the project can move forward.

  Sunday we will knock the wooden footer form apart and back fill with dirt. After that comes the easy part... paying someone to lay the block and finish off that section of the foundation! That will bring to conclusion a major repair that has needed to be done for a long time. As I am writing I hear thunder, so we must be going to get some more rain. I am very glad we seized the opportunity yesterday and got the cement work done. Who knows when we will have another dry day!

I have a special indoor project that I have been working on, as well as the regular "projects" that take up my days during the summer... weeding, harvesting and preserving goodies from our garden. This is a project I am very excited about, but I will save that story for a blog post of its own!

I hope that you are all well and enjoying a beautiful day! Until next time, Shalom!