Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
gardening & landscaping, home improvements

lacking

Another week, another obligatory post. Nothing much to report here. I’ve been trying to get some stuff done outside before the snow falls. I have most of the garden torn out and will be finishing that up on Friday, which I took off work to plant garlic. There’s still a lot to do out there, but it’s almost impossible to get anything done during the week with the early sunset.

Once the outdoor chores are done, then it will be time to get some things done inside. Brian installed a bunch of trim in our library, so I need to caulk and paint that. What an improvement that made to the room (even in its unpainted state)! He’s also going to be finishing up the bookshelves this winter, so there will be a lot of finishing to do with those.

We’re also going to refinish the office basement. We originally were going to hire someone to do that project, but it’s impossible to find anyone (not to mention, way more expensive), so we decided to do it ourselves. That’s going to be an undertaking.

out and about

gun raffle

My Dad, Brian and I went to the Jaffa Gun Raffle in Altoona yesterday. It was ok. I mean, it’s quite an impressive raffle, but we didn’t win anything, so there’s that. Also, I think one gun raffle per year is enough for me and this was my second. But, it was fun to hang out and take a break from everything.

gardening & landscaping

hedging bets

October arrived today and we pledged to ourselves that we’d take care of the hedge problem in October, so here we are. We went to Stuver’s this morning to see what they had and they talked us into arborvitae, which is a common hedge plant in these parts. All I knew was that I wanted something evergreen. They didn’t have any actual evergreen trees in stock (and they would have been way more expensive anyway), so we went with the arborvitae. The plants we got are 5-6 feet high, but they aren’t very wide. To fill in the gaps, we also purchased some tall grasses. In the long run, the grasses won’t be necessary, but it’s the short term that I’m concerned with.

Brian’s been digging holes all day and is about to put the 7th (and the last) into the ground. Then, he’ll have 6 grasses to go. Daylight is quickly fading, but the grasses are in much smaller pots, so hopefully he’ll be able to wrap things up tonight.

books

afraid

This was a novel by an author named Jack Kilborn. And if you think that name is made up, it is. The author’s real name is JA Konrath. Or is it?

Anyway, the book was rather Dean Koontz-ish, which is a good thing. While the premise was kind of ridiculous (a “red-ops” unit kills an entire town), I did manage to read it in a week-and-a-half, so it wasn’t all bad.

My rating 3.5/5

gardening & landscaping

compost

As it turns out, the compost bin was in no shape to move, so it has been disassembled and Brian is using the salvageable cedar on some personal projects. Since we’re still planning on moving after Jake graduates, we’re not going to go to the expense of building another bin. I’m going to try trench composting for a change of pace. That’s not going to allow me to compost quite as much, but we’ll see how it works out. I could always move to the “pile” system, but Brian doesn’t find that aesthetically pleasing. However, the pile would be on the border of the property in plain view of our neighbor so that’s one plus.