The first cabin is now completely built, and I think it looks great. There is still a lot of of work to do to really finish it, but it is usable as a bunkhouse now. I can’t wait to go stay in it.

We bought extra, larger windows and doors from the Habitat for Humanity Restore, and from a local architectural salvage yard. So there should be a lot of light and ventilation.

Platform for second cabin

Inside view of the loft

View of loft and metal roof

Front doors - architectural salvage

View of the front of the cabin

View from across the pond. So cute!

John and Brendan dug the post holes, poured the concrete posts, and started building the bases of the cabins this week.

Here’s cabin 1.

Cabin 2 is a little further along. You can get a good feel for how big they will be.

Hi Kiddo!

The tiki bar is up & people are out to celebrate Daniel’s birthday.

Rainy meadow.

On Friday, the cabin kits arrived.

The truck driver had spent the night at the Flying J in Sunbury.  Alex & Brendan met him there in the morning, and he followed them out to the land.  Four of these pallets on the truck belonged to us, along with several large beams.  Each of the pallets weighed about 4000 pounds.

Once there, Alex had to learn how to drive the enormous forklift, then unload the pallets from the truck into the neighbor’s field.

Heading out to the field.

They picked up the pallets, then drove them through the field back to their sites by the pond.

Here are the pallets over by the pond where the cabins will be built over the next couple of weeks by John and Brendan.

Alex is happy to be done.

The cabin kits are coming next Thursday. Very exciting.

So to unload the delivery truck and get the pieces to the other side of the pond, we rented one of these:

We went to the land yesterday – the snow was gone, the fish were jumping, and the spring peepers were out. The kids did some fishing.

There were also animal holes and tunnels everywhere.   A lot of the lumps and tunnels were caused by the stupid groundhogs that we have out there.  But there were these other holes, some that I think are toad holes, and some that were connected to long tunnels in the grass.

What animal made this track?  These tunnels through the grass went on for some distance.

See – these tracks are long.  Could these paths have been created when the grass was still covered by snow?  Could these be mole tracks? We’ve seen a star-nosed mole before.

I went down the vegetable garden & it was a big soup with standing water in the paths.  And the beds were covered with field grass. I didn’t have time to weed the strawberries, and couldn’t get the garlic in.  I think we are going to till, then cover the beds with biodegradable row cover to kill the grass.  We build the raised beds last year & just tilled the grass in.  I wanted have the organic matter in the bed that the dead grass would provide, but that may have been a mistake.

We also staked out where the cottages will go, and Alex cut down two dead trees that were in the way.   The cottages will arrive in a few weeks, it is very exciting!

Our house is on a typical city lot, not tiny, but not too big.  There’s an alley to the side, and without a fence we have a view of the back of a convenience store.

Five years ago or so, we had a landscape designer (Johnstone and Associates) draw us up some plans for the backyard.  I wanted it to have an intimate city garden feel, like you might see behind a Victorian townhouse.   We asked for a brick patio big enough for a dinner table, and no grass to mow.  He drew us beautiful plans with a upper dining patio made of brick, and a lower round patio of Pennsylvania bluestone.   That’s where it ended for a couple of years, until we had the funds to move forward

Then three years ago, we took down the old fence, and tore out an old wooden deck.  Then we tore out the  older wooden desk which was underneath it the top deck.   Later that summer, the builders came in and graded everything, and put in the patios.  Last year, we put in a 6-foot privacy fence.

Here’s what it looks like today:

Another view

Let’s get rid of the snow shovel.

That’s better.

We have some of the structural plantings in, but there is a lot of space left to plant.  I’m looking forward to making it lush and green over the next few years.  And it looks pretty good from some angles, but we still have some work to do.

Oh my.

Someone should pick up those toys.

Hello snowdrops

What a big difference in one week.

I was just looking at the Clatter Valley Gardens website, which I found when looking for which of the ‘girl’ magnolias was most tree-like.  He has the most gorgeous gardens.  They are in Connecticut –  but very lush, almost tropical, lots of color.

So beautiful. I need to plant some more magnolias around the patio.   I like these – they are magnolia ‘Ann’.  I think that they would look good around the patio, in the narrow beds up against the fence.  It is a little tree/shrub only 10-15 feet high.  I think I might get a couple, and prune them up to be more treeish.

Magnolias are the prettiest trees when they are in bloom, and I like them the rest of the year too.  We’ve put in a patio and a fence during the last few years, and now need to make the space into a garden.  It should be a lush and intimate space.

I’m a sucker for plants that don’t grow in this zone, so I probably also need a Brugmansia.  Even if it grows to a monstrous size and  I have to bring it in every winter.

I like to start more seeds than is reasonable, so Alex built me this light stand a few years ago.  It uses cheap shop lights, and regular florescent bulbs.

I like to start my seeds in the APS 40 units from Gardener’s Supply.  They are great for getting the plants started, since you can bottom water every 4-5 days.  I also don’t have problems with damping off anymore since I started using these.  The only problem I’ve had is that some plants will quickly send roots into the capillary matting.  To prevent this from happening,  I move the plants into plastic deep root flats once they get big enough.

Hello, babies.