This Year

It began as a vision in the foggy mists of January. As I stood in the backyard chilled to the bone and praying that we'd have an early thaw, I saw the garden spot alive with flowers and butterflies and flowing with milk and honey. Well, full of food anyway. I needed something to keep me sane during the winter, so I ordered some gardening books for myself. I'll have to admit I was pretty zealous about it. The second the sun came out (mid February), I was outside digging and foraging for usable materials. I used the wheels my brother and I salvaged from our scrapping adventures, some bricks I found up at the dump spot on the hill, and some sandstone from a school that my brothers and father demo-ed years ago. My goal was not to spend a cent on the structural stuff, and I was able to realize it. 

So without further ado, here is the finished lot.

 

I put a boarder of railroad ties on the north and south sides.

I took another 5 feet past the trees into the yard and put in bricks as a barrier. 

As you can see I've planted a few things already. The raspberries and strawberries are located on the north side of the garden near the compost bin. I put down fescue grass as a mulch to help keep the weeds down. How well that works is yet to be seen.

 

I built up a little wall to make a permanent flower bed and put down old carpet
 as a pathway (I know it's not so green, but I'm using what I have here).

I've put a bed of Asparagus in on the south side with a rhubarb plant in the far corner. We had a bunch of rusted out water troughs and old tires that I thought would make great raised beds, so they were thrown in the mix as well.

I used the vintage farm wheels as decorative boarders around
 the perimeter of the house. This is on the south side where the
 tomatoes were last year.

I thought blueberries would do well in this spot so I put them in when the other berries went in. I also put a couple bushes on the east side of the house, so hopefully we will have plenty of them to keep us happy. It wasn't just the back of the house that I overhauled, the front needed work too.
Here is the result.  



I ripped out the wild rose bushes and created an actual bed.

I've planted perennials and artichoke as ornamental plants, along with watermelon as a cover, in the above spot. Everything is basically experimental at this point. In the below spot I've just fescued the dickens out of it in an attempt to control the weeds. I've planted herbs in the pots and put some cactus out as well.

 

We used to have a Dairy, so of course I would use these left overs.

There is a lot I still need to do, but I've decided to wait on it until next year. This has been quite the project already and my visions are always evolutionary. Most likely I will change a few things as time goes by, but in the mean time I'll just enjoy the work in progress.


Herb tower + concrete swan = hodge podge design. I don't know
if I like it yet, but I'll see what it looks like with flowers.

That'll do pig

I bought this pretty little pig (it's what they're called in the industry) in Korea. It was the next to biggest size I could find. The biggest one was way too big and as we know it's much easier to put weight on then to take it off. So I bought this pig with the intention of helping her gain some girth so she could be useful to me.

Look at her so slim and cute.

She even has a Korean name.

 

I brought her home and fed her some good sandwiches and fattened her up. No wait, that was me. I just added padding to her so now she is rounded and full and very healthy looking.

 

I had to add the most at the waist.

Fitting around the arm hole was a challenge,
 but darts are great for things like that.

Since we can both wear the same size , draping has become much easier because I can tell exactly what I'm going to look like in a design. I don't have to waste time and effort on something that in the end won't turn out. This was well worth the effort for me.

 

When she needs to do a skinny gig, I just unzip the fleshy parts and hang her fuller self in the closet. It's working perfectly.

 

 

BTW it's also been very fun to see what I actually look like. I am always so hard on myself, but these measurements have been mine for the last ten years and I think they're just fine.