Improved terraces for the blueberries

Ok, so I know it's been quite a while since I wrote the post about the torrential rain. But shortly after the rainstorm just about washed away the blueberry bushes, I improved the terracing.

I've added rock to the original terrace and built a
second terrace above the plants to stop water washing onto the plants.

The new terrace is finished with mulch and gravel.

The second terrace is intended to allow water to seep, rather than flow. The line of gravel that you see in the lower photo will help the water flow across the upper terrace. That should help distribute the water more evenly to all six plants.

Yesterday, which is several weeks after those photos were taken, I decided to create a gravel lined drain. I noticed that dirt was still washing onto the mulch surrounding the two plants closest to the house. So I've dug a "ditch" to extend the gravel in front of those two plants. Then the ditch switches back to travel up the hill ending just below the lip of the rain garden.

We'll need to check things out tomorrow morning to see how well that new feature held up to the 2.5" of rain we got today. Of course, it's not very pretty since it's just dirt and gravel. But, if that held, we will know we've solved the issue. I'll make sure to take a picture :-)

More gravel and garden sculpting

Add caption

This was the second of three truckloads of gravel that Brent and I spread. We ordered a whopping 45 tons of gravel to finish out the our drive, walkways and a guest parking area. That's on top of the 40 tons that we spread earlier this past winter.

Luckily, without 2 mortgages we can now afford to rent things like this Dingo to help :-)

Amazingly useful Toro Dingo (loved it!)

Before we spread the gravel, I used the Dingo to finalize the layout of our gardens on the west side of the house. The smaller bucket attachment with the teeth was perfect for digging and moving dirt.

Here are some photos of the new lay of the garden space on the west side of the house:

We included a low "bridge" made of limestone slabs.
(There's my favorite landscaping partner posing to give it some scale.)

This view of the "bridge" shows the beginning of the gravel path from the front porch.

Here is the finished path from the guest parking to the front door.
The soft swale that will drain water down the hill is somewhat visible on the left side of this photo.

And this is the finished rock wall. The "bridge" with the drainage "stream" is to the left.
The stream will drain into a water detention depression that is below the rock wall.
The swale mentioned in the previous photo caption also drains to the depression.

With any luck, this work will give us a lot of different habitats for our native and edible plantings. It along with some well-placed and carefully chosen plants, will also mitigate any erosion issues on our rather steep sloped yard. Some of the plantings will start today - in the form of rapid spreading of seeds. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I need to work fast to get those on the ground!

More to come...

Thankful in 2014

This year there are so many things to be thankful for that finding the "important" ones to fit into a blog post would diminish them all. So I will only take this space to discuss those in the last 2 weeks.

Brent (probably my all-time favorite person to be thankful for) has finished all of the interior plumbing (which is probably the necessity I am most thankful for). Most significantly, he completed the plumbing in the kitchen. The kitchen even has a dishwasher - just need to move one of our refrigerators in and we're set. Of course, this time of year outside is, pretty much, all the refrigerator we need.

Our kitchen sink!

Our brand new dishwasher.

I'm glad Brent could figure out this plumbing.
The black valve allows us to divert the water for irrigation use in the summer.

Those diverter valves are placed only on the kitchen sink and the master bath sinks and shower. As our summers here get pretty dry, having these valves will allow me to use this "grey" water to develop some gardens with edibles and natives that require more moisture around the east and west sides of the house.

I am also thankful for our boys. Every parent dreams of seeing their children become contributors - and when they give back to you, well, that's really special.

Blaine installing our new locks.

Logan and Jeremy painting the last bedroom.

You can see from these photos that everyone (even Skylr who isn't in the photos) has been helping.

Since Rick (our builder) is about done with the final fixes to the trim, he has also installed our front door. Previously, we only had the final sidelight installed since the "real" door is full glass and might have been broken by the construction.

Our front door. We even have a door mat :-)

Brent and I spent so many days dreaming of the view from that door - and now it's a reality. And, yes, it brings to mind how fortunate I am to experience dreams come true. And this is just one of many.

And how can I end my Thanksgiving post without acknowledging these guys? They are so obviously thankful everyday for their feed. Of course, I pretend like it's me that they are so happy to see - so I get daily gratitude and alpaca smiles.

Mr. T eating his feed. He eats with his mouth open; they all do :-)

Okay, so these are a few events from our recent weeks that I thought to record with visuals. There are so many more and I could go on and on.

In short, life is good - amazing, in fact - and I am sincerely thankful.

Retaining walls - part 1

Okay, so it has been a while. I can't remember when they first delivered the rock. And I didn't see any photo-worthy progress last weekend. But now…

Greg Wheeler moving one of the rocks.

The retaining walls are finally in the works! Brent and I met Greg Wheeler at the farm Saturday. He and his boys were setting the rocks on the east side for the tallest retaining wall.

Here are some photos of their progress:

Greg and Brent near the cistern at around 11:00.

Here's the way it looked when we left an hour or so later.

This is where they left it. We are short of some needed fill dirt.

Since this is a side job for Greg, our rock guy, he only has the weekends and evenings available to work. His day-job has kept him super-busy and our nicely spaced rains have kept him from being able to start when he did finally have time. We will need to have some dirt brought it and additional rock to help keep things moving on these walls.

We are just happy to see them taking shape. The East side of the house has the highest and most complex retaining wall. It will form the walkway out of the Summer Kitchen. It also brings the ground up to the deck that runs along the East side and wraps to the kitchen and desk area on the South side.

With any luck Brent will build us an arbor for grapes, akebia or kiwi that can grow from a spot on top of that retaining wall. We will need something to shade that kitchen window in the summer.

In addition to the retaining walls, the cedar awnings were started last week. They will add a lot of interest to the house. Rick and Dave are building them and they started with the structure over the garage doors on the North side. It looks great. I can't wait to see the others. Brent and I will finish them off with corrugate steel for a barn roof look.

We continue to see more and more signs that the electrical and plumbing are getting their final touches prior to sheet rock. I am most excited about the gray water system that Grabil plumbing and Rick helped us design. I will love salvaging some good water for irrigating gardens on both the East and West sides of the house.

On the not-so-glamourous side, I pulled a TON of poison ivy up today. I was so nervous and it was so hot wearing 3 layers of stuff to avoid the noxious oil. But I think I got it all. I'll let you know next week if I successfully avoided contamination :-)

Stalling...

Work has really slowed at the construction site. Almost nothing has changed inside the house. Our desire to have little or no ducting and our super-sealed up house have made the design of our climate control system difficult. And the search for a contractor to bid and install the system has been an additional complication. The wait for HVAC has delayed the application of sheetrock and we are now a month (or two) behind.

And, yet, there has been progress.

Rick and Dave have installed the salvaged lumber siding in the Summer Kitchen.

And the maple tree was excavated in preparation for retaining walls.

Both of the cisterns have been installed. And the stand pipe visible in the picture of the maple tree is part of the rainwater collection system that will feed the cistern on the West side - at least I think that's what it is.

The septic system installation is finished and we noticed that electrical boxes had been placed and wires have been pulled to them inside.

The most exciting thing coming up will be the retaining walls. We meet with Greg, the installer, on Friday to finalize their positioning. He should be able to install them this weekend. I can't wait to see them. They will define the first gardens!

But best of all the happenings at the farm is the chances we have to bring our family visitors out to see our future home.

My sister-in-law and nieces and nephew with Brent, Logan and Jeremy.

And, of course, the plants seem to keep doing their work, growing and trying to be productive - to my utter amazement. We may have apples this year from the first trees we planted in 2011!

Apples ripening.

Water lines and wonderful pasture

The weather in Eastern Kansas has been fabulous, perfect for growing beautiful tall grass in our pastures. So Brent and I had a little picnic Friday evening in the summer kitchen at the farm. We opened up the double doors and enjoyed the breeze and the quiet evening birdsongs. We even took a walk out to the draw to see if the pecan trees were alive.

Here's what we found:

Me (with a little wine) in the lush pasture.

And, yes, the 2 pecan trees are coming back.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will have pecans before I'm 60.

It was a very beautiful evening. And on our walk we saw many flowers blooming in the pasture including: rudbeckia, yarrow, Deptford pink, and spider milkweed. Strangely we also noticed the blackberries on the west side of the draw that in previous years had been thick are now nearly gone. Hopefully they are still growing on the West side and in the fencerows.

The most exciting development we noticed in the construction of the house was the water lines. They have been installed and we have hydrants for the greenhouse and the barn. We also can see the placement of the cisterns for rainwater collection.

The water line enters the house on the West side (right behind where Brent is standing).
The orange rectangle is the placement of the 2000 gal. cistern.

This is the hydrant that will provide water for the greenhouse.

This orange rectangle marks the placement of the 1000 gal. cistern
where we will collect the run-off from the east side of the house.

And our septic tank was installed.
Unfortunately all the yuccas in the area were destroyed.
I wouldn't be surprised if I could revive them by simply sticking them in the ground.

This is the second hydrant we had installed. It will provide water to the barn.

Before we ended our very fun evening, Brent took this awesome picture. It's the view through one of the rectangular cut glass pieces in the sidelight by the front door. I'm hoping the front door, when it's installed, will have a few spots at my height so I can enjoy this view without a stool.

Two girls fishing from a paddle boat in the pond across the street to the West.

My big rain barrel isn't so big after all

A few months ago I decided we have the perfect spot for a rain barrel. The downspout on the northeast corner of our house emptied beneath the steps from our deck. An additional deck will be built at that corner of the house, so a rain barrel in this spot will be hidden. And that gave me the idea of having several rain barrels linked together. Then my husband Jerry suggested using one of those white 250 gallon tanks that have a metal cage around them. What a great idea! That ought to take all spring to fill up. So he bought the tank and I started digging.

Here's a photo of the space we wanted to use. It's pretty much a mess. Whenever it rains water collects at the bottom of the steps. And the brick retaining wall is falling apart. After measuring the area, I figured that with a little digging the large tank would fit perfectly. The tank measures approximately 4' tall, 4' long and 3' wide. It comes equipped with a large opening in the top and a 2" ball valve at the bottom. I decided to position the tank so that the valve at the bottom of the tank would be accessible when standing by the retaining wall at the bottom of the steps.

So my first task is removing the crumbling brick.

In this photo taken last fall when we moved in, you can see there are several hostas that grow in this space, hiding a lot of the problems. They were beautiful. So before I did anything else I removed the hostas from under the deck stairs and set them aside for replanting later.

I used a small sledge hammer to break up the brick. I dumped the broken bricks and mortar in the space that has yet to be back-filled around the foundation of the sunroom, and I salvaged all bricks that weren't broken.


I decided to use red Windsor wall block to rebuild the retaining wall. After removing the bricks I found a small concrete footing that I couldn't remove. So I decided to place the blocks just outside the concrete footing. To accommodate the little lip on the bottom of the wall block, I cut a channel in the blacktop of our driveway. Using a masonary bit, I drilled holes about 3/8" deep. Then with masonary chisel and hammer I chipped out the channel. Once that was done stacking the blocks was easy. But it took me a whole weekend.

To make a space for the tank to sit just west of the stairs, I needed to dig into the dirt along the north wall of the house. I wanted to make sure the tank was level. So the next weekend I build an additional retaining wall and created a gravel floor where the tank could sit.

And, voilá! With Jerry giving me a hand to move the tank in place, the rain barrel was installed. We cut the downspout to end about a foot above the top of the tank. We attached a flexible, expandable downspout we bought at Home Depot to the downspout to direct water to the opening in the top of the tank. A 12"X12" piece of window screen was placed over the opening to catch leaves. It was attached with a large gear-drive hose clamp and the flexible downspout was attached with a wire.

The best part was the drenching downpour we had the following morning. We got about 2" of rain that day. It only took about 30 minutes to fill the tank to over flowing. That's 250 gallons in half an hour! So I guess it wasn't going to take the entire spring to fill it up after all. Jerry and I quickly decided that we could probably use two more. Luckily there won't be any retaining walls to rebuild where we install the other two :-)

Oh, and today Jerry, again being the fabulously handy guy he is, installed fittings and a spigot to which I connected my garden hose. And I watered for free! Of course, it's different than the pressurized water from my house - a lot slower. But it works and it's free, did I say that?