Steps!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 1:07 pm (Cottage Industry, Heavy Clay)
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I get so out of sorts when I haven’t posted for a while. More than a week has gone by — a family visit, a holiday, a few fun day trips, plenty of work (home & garden and the paying kind), a lot of good food, some ups & downs with my mother. Nothing earth-shattering — just life as we know it.

But, I did want to give a quick follow-up to Wall!

Yes, the contractor finished the steps to our satisfaction (mostly). What a treat to have easy access to the back yard! We still need to cap off the top corners where Mike wasn’t pleased with how the top step juts up over the adjoining wall. We’re scouting out a decorative feature to put on either side as well. And adding stepping stones or some other transition between the top step and the grass. 

We worked like dogs in tropical humidity once the steps were done. Mike filled in both sides with 2 truckloads of topsoil and I moved a bunch of plants around, readying the space for a new look. The birdbath fountain we bought last year on clearance finally made it out of the box (and promptly started shedding its Chinese paint, sigh) and I got a few new things planted, including the poor little tree we’ve had in its pot for weeks and weeks. There’s lots more space to fill — you know what that means, another trip to the garden center — or two or three. Yay!

 In summer, the song sings itself.
         ~ William Carlos Williams

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Wall!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 6:11 pm (Cottage Industry)
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Probably the last time you heard so much ado about a wall was when one came tumbling down. In Berlin. In 1989.

My version is about a wall going up. At our house. After 14 months of waiting.

Share it with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, no steps yet…I think they befuddled the contractor. At one point yeserday there were four men staring at the dirt where the steps will go. And they didn’t come back today. But as I told Mike last night, even in its unfinished state, the area still looks better than it has in the entire 3 years we’ve lived here.

Stay tuned for the sequel (Beyond the Wall) in which our intrepid homeowners decide how to finish the newly lengthened driveway (where the gravel is now). Will they choose more asphalt? Pavers? Something else? Oh the excitement of it all. But don’t hold your breath — this will likely take a while. There’s still that pesky sewer issue to fix, front porch to rebuild, closet-turned-powder-room in the works, a deck to resurface, a “honey, what if we…” project ongoing in the back yard, and a half-dozen other items on the to-do list.

The big fun never ends on Pleasant Valley Road. But slowly, slowly, slowly, the house is looking like responsible, motivated, proud owners live here.

 He conquers who endures.
                        ~ Persius

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If you dream it, it will come?

Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 3:02 pm (Cottage Industry, Heavy Clay)
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There’s been a terrible mistake. I’m supposed to be living in a cottage surrounded by flowers. It’s as plain as day, right on my office wall.

Remember Richard Dreyfuss’ character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? He obsessively builds his mound/mountain without really knowing why, until that eureka moment when he finds it in real life.

I like to think my cottage obsession is like that. That someday I’ll be moseying along, minding my own business, and come upon my dream cottage…for sale…cheap… and Mike and I will buy it and live out our days there. (OK, honey?)

It could happen, right? I’ve read many articles in my home & garden magazines that begin, “Well we weren’t even LOOKING for a house, but we came around the corner and there it was. We had to have it (even though we had to sell our current house, quit our jobs, move 3 states away, and spend $100K renovating it).”

 It could happen, right?    Yeah, right.

But I can envision it anyway — the chair here, table there, tiled fireplace, gardens all around.

In the meantime, like Richard, I keep trying to create my dream right where I am.

It’s not so bad, really. 

There are more far-fetched futures to dream about. (That place on the beach, for example.)

But on a day as glorious as this one — clear, sunny, just warm enough — even cottages in the air seem not only possible, but probable. I’ll just stumble onto it.

I know it.

 I have never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness,
as that one which I have had always,
that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden.
                                       ~ Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666  

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