Super Healthy

Morning, everyone. Happy Friday! It's crazy this is the last weekend in May. Sue has four weeks remaining in her internship.

Gay marriage is turning out to be a pretty big deal in the state (as if the legislators didn't have enough to worry about with the consequences of their budget bungling). Apparently, 60 percent of Rhode Islanders support same-sex marriage, but who knows what will come of it.

Our compost bin seems to have some decent dirt in there, because something is growing, and it looks super healthy. See that green thing in the back right? It must have sprouted up in about 48 hours!


I'll be on a short blog break through next Thursday, but I'll look forward to sharing updates when I return to the keyboard. Until then, stay cool, take it easy and mind your manners.

PS
When Wall-E came out, I prompted you guys. Well, Pixar is at it again. As the kids say these days, "Don't sleep."


Then again, the NYT is not so enthusiastic, or should I say, not enthusiastic. Humbug. The WaPo gushes gushily.

PPS
I responded to all recent comments. I had fallen behind a little. Thanks so much for your continued support, everyone!

Upside Down "V"

About half of the stuff we put in the soil blocks on April 29th did not make it -- carrots, espanola peppers, watermelons. Some of the problem was probably the moo-doo-based soil I used (which dried super hard), but we did plant some things in potting soil in little pots, and some of those still haven't sprouted - notably, the watermelons and windowsill peppers.

Most of the stuff that did make it is now in the garden. There are also still a few things that are still coming along.

The tiny little sprig is the first sign of life from our slower-growing clematis variety (Planty the Plant is also a clematis.), which will go on the side of the house and hopefully grow into the lattice work of our yet uninstalled fence.


Thyme


These are the four o'clock flowers. Once they get a little bigger, we'll have to figure out where to put them.


Here's how the garage is looking at the moment.


The painters came on Tuesday, and they did most of the garage and part of the interior of the porch. It's looking pretty good, but unfortunately, they made a handful of mistakes.

A) In the garage pic, you can see there's moulding in an upside down "v" that follows the roof line in the front. That should be trim-colored. B) The door to the garage should be semi-gloss, and we don't think it is. C) The porch (maybe I'll take some pictures tomorrow) was all pink/orange previously, and we wanted it to be treated like the rest of the house, with both trim and body colors. When we came home Tuesday night, it was in the process of being painted all gray/purple.

I called Tom Brady yesterday to explain our concerns, and he said he was flexible. They would manage it how we liked, but he wondered if these requests I was making were written down. I shared detailed written instructions (even with some diagrams!) when the job started, and he said he had been keeping the written instructions in the garage. Funny, because he had followed all the other written instructions (like the pillars and dental work in the front) precisely. When I got home from work yesterday, I found the instructions in the garage, and all of our requests were outlined on that sheet of paper, except for the upside down "v".

Starting Saturday, the weather is supposed to be sun and more sun for a week. We expect the house will be done then.

PS
Corinne, thanks for the comment to yesterday's post, you're so right! I guess I knew that, too, but had forgotten!



Here's the article from which I grabbed the pic. Thing is, the moss apparently loves the fermentation - either beer or buttermilk.

I know the sluggers don't like salt, so I put up a thicker-than-ever-before salt shield comprised of sea salt, flour, garlic, habenero peppers, unknown red pepper powder from Hatch, NM, and water.


Another challenge is, when the previous shields have dried out, long trails of hungry ants have appeared to carry away the salty goodness in chunks. Ah well... who will outlast who? Grow moss grow!

Any Gunk

So, this weekend we also put some extra umph into the gutters. The painters fixed the problem we were having with water running behind the gutters (by installing flexible adhesive flashing under the shingles and down into the gutters). We added some metal netting, to catch maple helicopters and other debris before they could clog up the downspouts and underground pipes.

This is the garage gutter. Note the helicopters.


Here's Rain Rain No Go Away from June 15 last year. And at the bottom of this post is where we put the old metal netting in.

Well, the painters riveted the gutters into place this time, so it is harder to clean out the debris - the gutter downspouts are totally fixed in place. So, we had to move the netting so it is accessible from the "clean out plug", and we can more easily remove any gunk that collects.



I didn't take pictures of or on my climb to the second story in the front of the house. Didn't want to jinx it, but thank goodness we had a strong aluminum ladder. That was a little scary.

PS
A major slug onslaught last night caused massive moss casualties. This is a challenging art project. Need to reinforce the slug shield. If you zoom in, you can see all the slug slime... taunting me.

City of Brotherly Love

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend. Sue and I were in Philly for the majority of it for the wedding of one of Sue's high school friends, Amy (and her new husband, Mark). Fun times. We went to an art festival thingie, to see another of Sue's friend's (Kit's) jewelry exhibition on Saturday, hit up a big flea market on Sunday, had some nice meals along the way, and got to catch up with a bunch of Sue's cool gang.

To avoid traffic and have time to get some things done around the house, we left Philly at 4:30AM yesterday and got home about five hours later. It was tiring, but we're happy we did it. It was glorious outside yesterday, and we got to enjoy it.

We did a bunch of stuff outside. All these maple helicopters have been dropping into the gutters, and it's making us feel like they'll clog up the downspouts and sewer lines and force us to call Roto-Rooter (June 19, 2008) again. So we did a little repair and installation job on our gutter netting - tomorrow's post - and we renovated the moss slurry sun. Regular readers will remember the sun from way back when.

Well, it was supposed to puff up in vital green moss after five weeks, but I think the original slurry was not holding enough water. It kept drying out, even though I was trying to water it morning and night. So we got some heavier firepower: Horta-Sorb SM.


The stuff is kind of sketchy, but apparently it's effective. It makes these little firm pillows of moisture, and apparently roots can access the water. (In fact, the first time, I put too much powder in, and the blender filled up with the little pillows. Craziness.) Here's the manufacturer's spec sheet.

The mosses I got from Ellen's and Julie's yards. A cool collection, I think, though they're trying to get rid of it.


Moss, water, Horta-sorb, and a little beer. I hope the moss likes Brooklyn Lager.







PS
A few pics from the City of Brotherly Love.

Big Bonsai

Happy Friday, folks!




The colorist dude was right... the semi-gloss "accent" color on the pillars and on that little "dental" work moulding across the top is neat-looking. It's lighter and steelier. That will ultimately be the color/sheen of the garage door. Seriously, though, it's like a new house.


We've gotten a couple queries about our moss, too, so here's a little update. The plan in the front was, plant the moss in the northeast bed with the hostas, and when the hostas come up, they'll provide lots of shade, and the moss will thrive. Then when the hostas die back in the winter, the moss will provide some green cover for that dead-looking bed. Part one of the plan seems to be working. I've been watering it, and the moss is beginning to crawl. We'll have an update next week on the status of the moss slurry design in the back.



In fun backyard news, we filled the second garden bed with loam last night. Hopefully Julie will plant some good stuff in there. And yesterday we received our order of amur maple trees. We got a little discount for ordering more than three, so we got four, and we have decided to name them after The Beatles.

Does anyone want one? Three trees. First come, first deserved. Would be a discussion point for years and years to come. Katie and Heather? You guys could plant one in your new backyards? Brandini? Molly? Ma, something for the front of the house? Hans or C, needing some shade from summer heat? San Diego, we could bring one to the reunion if you like.

They are deciduous, grow about 20 feet high, and they have multiple trunks - sort of tree/bushy and in need of some pruning to help define their shape. Think of them as big bonsai. To be honest, we're not exactly sure which cultivar these are, but some have flowers in the spring. Here are some sites with further info: 1, 2, 3.



John and Paul are on the left (front and back respectively), since they came taped together. Ringo is front right, since he's a little crooked. George is back right, hiding a little, since he's aloof and quiet.


In other news, remember all those dentist visits I went on a couple months back? Well, I've been having some pretty severe pain for the past eight or ten days. It appears I'll have to go back and get a couple root canals. Arg. But fake teeth are better than painful teeth.

Brown met its $1.4B Campaign goal this week; it was supposed to be in some newspapers this morning, but apparently no one cares. To celebrate with my little team, I'm making oatmeal cookies with dark chocolate chips this morning.

Also, Drew and I registered with a co-ed soccer team for the summer season. (Lindsey, do you want to play? I think they have extra spots.) I'm expecting it'll be pretty low-key, which is good, since I haven't strapped on the old cleats in three-four years.

Live it up, cool peoples! Have some fun this weekend!

Looking... Interesting

Sue's so happy it's going up to 83 degrees today. Guess I should water the garden this morning. The front of the house is looking... interesting.




Our colorist dude recommended that we paint those "pillars" around the door the same color as the house, but that we use semi-gloss paint instead of flat paint. Should look pretty cool. And of course, we can't wait to see what the house and colors look like with the gray foundation and red (Dinner Party) doors.

PS
Cut-outs continue.

Sort of Overwhelming

Until this weekend, most of my wardrobe was kept on these shelves for the past three years. We got the shelving thing for $40 by following up on a sign posted outside the grocery store when we moved to Church Street in Dupont. It fit the space in our old place perfectly, but here in Providence it was sort of overwhelming.


This was how our bedroom looked before Malm.


Now we think it's a little more traditional. Once we decorate some and cover the air conditioner somehow, we think it'll look pretty nice. (There's a matching two-drawer bedside table over there that you can't see.)


They started painting the front of the house, and the weather's supposed to be great again today, so they should finish up the body and trim. Woo hoo!



Over the course of the past few weeks, the peony made one gigantic flower. I've been told when plants are newly planted, it's healthy to trim off their flowers, so they use their energy for developing a strong root system, hence...






PS
Happy Birthday, Steve!

Advances Aplenty

Here's a double-long post covering advances aplenty!

Sue and I made two trips to IKEA (one Friday night, the other Saturday morning) in Stoughton, MA, and much of the weekend was spent unpacking, assembling and arranging Stolmen and Malm furniture. Sue danced two sets at a Syrian restaurant on Saturday evening, and she really enjoyed a three-hour workshop on Sunday afternoon with a famous bellydancer who used to reside in Providence.

In preparation for the Stolmen installation, we also hastily emptied and painted the 91" nook in the yellow room. We kept one wall yellow (but toned it down by using a Disney color called Main Street Lights), and chose a yellow-tinted creamy paint called Eggnog for the rest of the room.

We also found a smidgen of time to plant our garden bed. Squashes (two varieties) and cukes in the front. Tomatoes in the middle (two varieties) which are so small as to be hard to see. Wee little beet seedlings are farther back, then onions (which are not pictured).



The yellow room was sort of overflowing with stuff and art projects and whatnot. It's not shown, but for several months, I didn't have enough storage, so things were being "stored" in piles on the floor. Not good.


Enter Stolmen.



(When the sun goes down, the white light in the room lightens the yellows dramatically.)

Much better overall. You'll note the stop-action tent has been removed. I am working on redesigning it for easier access. For the time being, it's going in the basement. Even though they make for amazingly vivid pictures with near-zero shadow, those lights from the first pic (the round aluminum thing clamped to the tent "roof", and there's another on the other side of the tent) are too much - basically blinding, in fact. More to come over the next couple weeks on that topic.

We'll show the Malm tomorrow.

PS
Planty the Plant reached the summit this weekend! She has successfully scaled the lattice work ladder.



That means she grew about four feet in a month, and plants are supposed to slow down when they experience the shock of transplanting! Ha! (Click the link and see the bottom of the post for old pics of Planty.) You can almost watch her grow!

PPS
The painters finished the side of the house on Saturday. Today they'll be working on the front. Hally-loo-ya!