Yard V: The Return

Hello all! Yes, I am aware that I have been missing for over a month.
The summer began with Jerod and I doing nothing but constantly working on the yard, culminating in building a privacy fence.We built this fence the weekend of June 11th and 12th and it was hard, hot and difficult. We ran into some trouble with a rock filled yard and tree roots but ultimately finished it and were extremely pleased with ourselves. Two days later Norman was hit with a large hail, wind and rain storm. We received golfball sized hail and sustained 70 mile per hour winds! Aside from it being a scary storm (the cats were going nuts) and having to get some damage to our house fixed (thank goodness for insurance) a large chunk of our new fence was blown down (sucked off is a more accurate description) most of our bedding plants were killed and the garden took a beating. This incident sort of killed my blogging spirit for a few weeks but I am back now with a few picture updates!
Here are a couple of pictures of the fence (isn't it pretty)! Our shed which I painted (check out how boring it was before! and what the garden is looking like.

Enjoy. . .

I will be back with more updates later in the week. Have a fun and relaxing weekend!

*If you need a refresher on were the yard started you can check it out here, here, here and here*

The Yard: Part IV, things are growing

I know it has been ages since my last post but I needed to let a few things start growing before updating everyone on the yards progress. Also, I will admit I was being a bit lazy about taking pictures.

Without further ado. . .here are the pictures!

This is a little overview of most of the garden.

The squash looking lovely

The okra is finally getting bigger.

Mint and rosemary. Don't worry we will eventually we will deal with this dirt (although it may not be this year)

Marigolds

We've been working on some building projects and indoor projects too. I will try get a post up about all of those in the near-ish future.

As always you can check out the progress of our yard here, here, and here.

The Yard: Part III

The yard accomplishments we made this weekend aren't stunning to look at but . . . I feel we got quite a bit accomplished, especially since we were only able to work on Saturday.

Here is what we did:

1. Removed the rest of the black edging!
2. Finished filling the garden with soil and compost.
3. Finished digging out the side of the front flowerbed.
4. Added and enriched soil in back flowerbed.
5. Planted Cosmos seeds.
6. Removed unfinished railroad tie boarder from the front of house. This one is a big enough deal I'll throw in a couple of before and after photos. We plan on leveling the bed and putting some type of edging or border around it.

It rained Sunday morning which is AMAZING, the precipitation totals for March and April so far were .05 inches. Hopefully, this will green up the yard a bit and really get the Cosmos growing.

*Our previous yard posts are here and here if you are wanting to check-out any of the work we've already done*

The Yard: Part II

Our last two weekends have been filled with yard work, sun and wind. After this last weekend I feel we are starting to make progress! Here are some updates. . .

First, I have been working on removing the world's ugliest and most corroded plastic edging. It is along all of our sidewalks and was put in POORLY, making it harder to remove. I have gotten about 1/2 of it out but it is slow going.


Next, we gave the bushes along the side of the house a little trim. We may have to do more later but it is a start.

*I would like to note, the black edging use to be all along this sidewalk.

Then, we continued on by cleaning out the back flowerbed. I don't have a before and after comparison (I forgot to take a picture when we started) but imagine tons of weeds, grass, rocks and weird holes.


THEN, it was on to extending the front flowerbed. We still need to work on the side area (see bush-trimming pictures) and remove, plus replace the unfinished railroad tie edging but my shoulders and back are aware of the what we have accomplished.

Finally, we are on to the big project! Jerod built the frame for our raised-bed garden. I held things during the assembly but Jerod did 90% of the work. Eventually, we will make at minimum one more bed but that may not happen this year.
We will be filling the bed with a soil and compost mix. Since, our compost isn't ready for use yet we will be getting all that we need from the City of Norman Compost Facility (I think it's cool that this option is available through our city government).

We were so pleased with our work that Jerod took me here for a tostada and beer, both of which I was very glad to have!
Now on to planting and a fence. . .wish us luck!

*If you want to check out our first big yard project you can find it here.*

Baby Gift

A few posts back I mentioned that I was working on a gift for some friends and that I would put up pictures after I had sent them their package. . .well. . .here they are.
Our friends, Kate and Andres are having their first baby, a boy, any time now! They had a celebration/shower last weekend. Unfortunately, for us, they live in Miami so we couldn't attend but wanted to send something special to mark the occasion; I whipped up a blanket, bib and burp cloth .
The bib and burp cloth are knit in cotton, from patterns in this book. The blanket is based on some swaddling blankets my sister received as a gift and swears by. I used a light-weight vintage cotton for the blanket as an attempt to offset the Florida heat and humidity.
I have said before that I use this hat pattern for winter and cooler climate babies. Do you all have a go to baby gift or diy item you like to give?

On Trend

I was pretty proud of myself when I saw this image and post on Apartment Therapy. If you all remember I had Jerod spruce up an old typewriter stand for us last fall (you can check it out here). Yay for being on trend . . . now I just need to be ahead of my time and get recognized for it:)

The Yard: Part I

We (and by we I mean Jerod and his father) made HUGE progress on our backyard this weekend! When we bought our house there was a corrugated metal shed in the backyard. This was good since there was no garage but bad because of its bizarre location (see pictures 1 and 2).

Don't ask me why but whoever put the shed in built it right in the middle of the yard and didn't level it, causing it to tilt towards our neighbors garage. Luckliy, my father-in-law and Jerod devised a plan that involved rolling the shed to the back of the yard on pipes (isn't that how Stonehenge was built?) Now our shed sits lovely and logically at the back of the yard (See picture 5)! Just imagine a fence, garden, flowers and green grass.




A couple of action shots. I tried to be sneaky so as not to interrupt all of the progress they were making.