Why we don't "wait till later"

As I stated on a previous post, my wife plays a huge part in our gardening process just by way of her ability to get me moving when I am lacking motivation. More that once, it has proven to be to our benefit. This weekend proved the point again. I get home early on Fridays most of the time, and this Friday was no different. We planned for me to run to the landfill to pick up another load of compost. I got that done with no problem, but when I got home, I was a little...well...lacking in direction. In other words I was kind of thinking three things and acting on none of them. (A common state of affairs I assure you.) Here's where A~ stepped in and we both got on task.

Above are a couple of pictures of our work at the end of the day on Friday. We were able to dig in and turn over the recycled concrete planter beds around the front of the house, add multiple wheelbarrows full of compost, and pull the weeds that germinated early in the spring. We aren't finished yet, there's still some planting to go in, we're planting edible herbs and some other edibles throughout these beds, and mulch to put down, but that will come a little later. So, why don't we "wait till later"?

Well take a look at these pictures. This is what the yard looked like this morning and for most of the weekend. In other words, the weekend would have been a total loss had we not buckled down and got on task on Friday.
This is what Spring time is like in Northern Utah and in many places in the U.S., and with climate change happening, who knows what the weather will do. The lesson is, when you have lemons, make lemonade. And by gosh when you have sunny spring days, get work done.

I learn so much from the garden. It is forgiving, yet so demanding. It rewards us for our effort and our forethought, and punishes us for our procrastination or our sloth. Is it any wonder that the Bible uses the garden and plants in so many of the parables we learn from.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Matthew 7 : 15-16

Maybe some time in the future I'll learn my lessons well and finally be able to get motivated myself. Until then, I have the garden to guide me and A~ to poke me in the butt when I need it.

P~

Tomorrow... sprouts are popping up.

In with the new

Well, so far so good! We spent the majority of last weekend working on finishing the front room and upstairs landing with the Red Oak flooring that we have. You can see the difference between the original kitchen entry on the left after we had ripped out the old carpeting and the new interlaced (that was a pain in the butt by the way) flooring on the right. I have to say that we had the flooring angels on our side during this weekends work. Although we did get a much later start than we had hoped too, somehow all of the corners and vents and walls seemed to land dead on in line with a plank seam. Had this not happened, I would have had to find some creative way of ripping the boards and lining them up correctly so that the rest of the floor wasn't crooked. Any way we made good progress, A~ and I haven't had a good home remodel project to work on since the recycled concrete work we did this spring and we always enjoy working together; this time was no different!
Here's another before and after. This is our front sitting room. Mainly it serves as a landing strip for our boys when they hurl themselves down the stairs which you might have noticed are not finnished yet. This will be my project for the next week or so. I fear that it will be slow going; I could by all of the finished bull-nose stair peices but at $40.00 per 5' piece, I think I'll be putting the old table saw to use thank you very much! I have been successfull in finishing off the entry ways to the bedrooms over the last couple of days, so I am not to worried about the stairs. Measure twice cut once right Dad? (It took a long time to learn that lesson I'll tell you!) Below is a picture of the finished bedroom entries. I have to say I'm pretty proud of the work I did, seeing as how I've never done it.

We still haven't decided on how we are going to ifnish the flooring. We are leaning towards the Tried and True product that I reviewed HERE, but we just aren't sure. It has to be durable, and waterproof, but we would like to avoid the polyurethanes if possible. Notice on the first before and after picture of the kitchen entry; the yellowing that can happen after just a couple of years. PolyUrethane is photo sensitive and will do that. Oil and wax penetrating sealants won't, or at least that is my understanding.

I was curious, it seemed there was a bit of interest in the wood flooring when I first posted it, is there any questions about the installation process that I can adress for any of you while they might be fresh in my mind. I know Phelan at Homesteading neophyte just did some nice wood flooring in her place, anyone else planning on it?

P~

Finally finished with the concrete.

Well, I think we've finally had enough with the concrete already. My wife and I had a great idea to recycle some concrete and use it in our landscaping rather than buying a bunch of basically the same thing for $3.00+ a piece. I should correct myself, I had the idea to use the stuff for a retaining wall around our front flower beds and brought home a few pieces to show her. After she decided she liked it, I felt like I had created a monster. She figured, hell it's free and it looks good, why not put a wall around the back garden bed too? And while we're doing that, why not use it like flagstone under the pergola? We could plant some creeping thyme; it'd look like a old english garden. Mean while I'm like," Hold on now sweetie. I mean, this stuff weighs a ton. Maybe we could just do a little at a time?" But really, I have to admit, I thought I would have ended up doing most of the work, but I didn't. The amount of pure labor that this woman put into it, was nothing short of amazing. She went with me to get the rock, she stacked most of it, even started swinging the sledge hammer towards the end. By the end of this project we had put such a dent in the pile of scrap concrete that we used for these projects that what was a 10x10 and 5 ft high pile of ugliness laying by the side of the road, can now be entirely missed if you don't know that it's there. We hauled in around 7 loads of concrete scrap that we had broken up on site and worked for oh, I dunno a month I guess every weekend and a couple nights a week. but all told I would say we saved about $1200-$1300 plus the fact that not only did we keep the concrete out of the dump, we didn't contribute to digging more rock out of the ground. Win win situation in my book. So here I am, enjoying the fruits of my labors so to speak, and here shall I be as often as possible. But now, I need to get a second one for the wife, she certainly earned herself one! So, what do you think? Just because it isn't sold at the home store and just because the neighbors don't have the same thing doesn't make it not nice; in fact in my book it makes it that much better.
P~