Another beautiful day

It was another gorgeous day today.

We planted three more trees. A Goldenraintree and two Washington Hawthorns. The Golden is on the right and the Hawthorn is below. This is what ours should look like when full grown.

We did some measuring and put some stakes in where we are planning on putting the deck, pool, and fence.

We are going to be putting in an above ground pool. We were debating on oval vs round. I think we will probably go with round. The round pools are supposedly easier to install. My favorite part is that they are considerably less expensive.

It is late and I am very tired, so I will post more tomorrow.

A few more things we are doing.

Mr. Fixit and I have been tossing around a few other ideas.

1. A hive. We have been talking about getting a bee hive. Since Mr. Fixit is allergic to bees, I will be queen of the hive. teehee. I am a little nervous about it and know it is not if I get stung, but when. But it will be great to have fresh honey and at the same time be doing our part to help bring the populations of honey bees back up.

I am actually very excited about it and hope we will do well enough with the first hive to expand to two or three next year.

2. Canning and Freezing. We are going to be putting our garden in very soon. We are going to do organic gardening this year. We are going to put up as much food over the Summer as we possibly can. I plan on doing some canning but will also be doing freezing and dehydrating. I want to go into Fall time with as many things as possible paid and done.

3. Grocery bags. We now have plenty of reuseable grocery bags and as long as we remember to always put them back in the car, we are done with plastic bags!

4. We had been talking about raising our own cow organically. I started doing research and by the time we bought the cow, raised it to a size to be butchered and paid for all the food and processing it was getting pretty expensive.

I looked around our area and found a gentleman who raises Black Angus organically. For a side of beef it will cost us around $550.00 depending on what the cow weighs in at. That includes the processing, packaging, and freezing! That will be more than enough beef for a year.

5. Pumpkin patch. We really wanted to grow some of our own melons and pumpkins this year. We debated about actually doing it because of the space it will take and with everything else going on we didn't know if we would have a chance to break more ground to do it. Mr. Fixit, the hardworking genius he is decided that we will definitely do it.

There is a patch below the hill that will be ideal and Mr. Fixit said it would take little work to get it ready. I am looking very forward to having pumpkin to freeze/can because one of every one's favorite desserts is pumpkin bread.

6. Chickens. We are going to go ahead and get our chickens this year. It will be great to have fresh eggs.

7. Trees. We have planted several trees around the house the last few days. I highly recommend the Arbor Day Foundation to anyone interested in trees and shrubs.

We will also be ordering some fruit and nut trees. We would like to have our own little orchard within the next few years.

It's a good life.

Happy Earth Day!

We made a very exciting Earth Day discovery!

Let me back-track a little here.....

In putting together a landscaping plan for the house we had decided to put in a rain garden* using Missouri's native plants and to try and set up a rain barrel system to help out with watering some of the gardens.

Today Mr. Fixit was tearing the underpinning off the addition. Apparently the addition (which houses our laundry room and down stairs bathroom) at one time was a screened in porch room. Who ever enclosed it did not do a very good job, as you can see from the pictures. So Mr. Fixit was tearing it all apart to repair it and prep it for the changes we are going to make inside.

Guess what was under there?? A well! It had a piece of sheet metal laying over it and from what we can tell it is about 25 feet deep. There is a pipe running into it that runs under ground over to the corner of the house where the drain pipe from the roof guttering comes over. Mr. Fixit is going to hook it back up so the rain water from the top roof runs into it. The well is already full so he is going to hook the overflow pipe up to run to the rain garden.

The big plan for the well is to hook a pump up into it so we can use the well water to water the gardens. I am so happy that is still there.

For safety's sake Mr. Fixit made a very heavy wood frame with sheet metal over it as a temporary cap.

*A very good link about creating your own rain garden:

http://www.shawnature.org/nativeland/NativeLandscapingManual/ChapterTwo.aspx#Elements

A few decisions

After much decision making Mr. Fixit and I decided on the carpet we are going to have installed. Apparently this style of carpet is called Frieze. I like to call it baby shag. We were originally thinking about going with Berber but heard too many horror stories about runs and wear. We then considered plush, but with the size of our rooms the only plush that was the correct width were all solid colors.

With 3 dogs, 2 cats, and one 8 year old boy a solid color is not a good idea.

Another factor in our decision was the floor samples. They had this, Berber, and plush laying on the floor where they and the customers walk across all day. This was the only one that still looked brand new.

We thought about installing it ourselves, but we would have to rent the tools to do so and if we mess it up that would be that. The Installer is only charging us $425.00 so I think that is a good price for all the work he is going to have to do.

As far as outside we decided to put the pool in the backyard instead of the side yard. Mr. Fixit is going to put a new door in the back and build a deck that will go right to the edge of the pool. Our grill and a new patio set will go there also.

For my flower gardens out front I have decided to go with all perennials. It will save money in the long run and if there are some annuals I want I can add them in. I will be buying preplanned gardens from Bluestone Perennials. You get significant savings on the plants and are guaranteed to have season long blooms.

We are still deciding what all we want to plant in the vegetable garden. I want to grow enough to put up almost all the vegetables we will need for the winter.

Okay that's it for now!