Logs stacked for next years splitting ...

I stacked a bunch of wood at the bottom of the driveway to help it dry and get it ready for the 2012 splitting season.  It looks like a big stack, so I'm not sure if this is all with the maul, or a rented splitter will be involved for the difficult ones.  

Notice the log on the lower right.  I picked up and found a really large black salamander with bright yellow spots already hibernating under it, so I carefully put the log back and will check again in the late spring.

An experiment on the Septic Field ....

One thing we're not crazy about is the large septic field we have on the lower part of the property. We thought we were really smart when we told Lee, our excavator, to not plant grass as we wanted it to 'go back to nature'. I'm sure all the contractors got a good laugh out of that! What we got instead this summer was random and huge specimens of just about every weed from the Northern and Southern hemispheres! I'm pretty sure there are a few Venus Fly Traps along with rag weed. And Kim thinks she heard one of them say 'Feed me' while weeding, and has yet to return to the 'Little Shop of Horrors' section of our property. Our new cunning, and probably equally hilarious strategy, is to plant wildflowers. We're envisioning the scene from the Wizard of OZ, with all the flowers ... and perhaps a yellow-mulched road. We'll see!

Anyway, we decided to start small and plant about 400 square feet of the area right after the 'Killing Frost', which I decided meant right after the massive October snowstorm that almost froze us to death after power was out for several days.

Here you can see a picture of Kim shoveling some dirt to load a wheelbarrow for me to take down the hill. We needed to put six inches of top soil down. Kim came down to check the progress, casually mentioning she had spread 40 yards of mulch this past summer. I explained that dirt was heavier then mulch, so she decided to throw on her overalls and check it out herself. Let me tell you, this photo is misleading. Kim filled up about three of her green thimble sized wheel barrows and then exited to get ready for a dinner out and left me to moving dirt into the night.

I should also mention that the bag of seeds was about the size a baggie you'd put your kid's sandwich in. When I saw it, I asked Kim, or should I say Jack, where she got the 'magic seeds' from, that were supposed to cover 400 feet. Turns out she mixed them with sand, and covered about half the area...while grumbling about that the package instructions indicating coverage of more. Not bad, and another bag is being delivered via the web for planting next weekend. Anyway, after all that, you can see how small a piece of land we're planting (left). We'll give an update late next spring.
The good thing about planting this fall is that the melting snow of the spring will water the seeds. Which is a good thing, since the area is many hose extensions from the water source.

Lastly, Kim insisted on adding an 'actual size' photo of the seed package(right), sticking to her claim that she was NOT planted a gigantic beanstalk.

Kim's first visit to Tractor Supply ....

On one of our rare Saturday trips outside Kent, I managed to get Kim into a Tractor Supply Store by telling her that they had a great 'Petite' section and were running a sale. There was no way she would pass that up and ended up buying a kind of cowgirl shirt and dog stuff. She told the checkout gals, that she was lured in by her husband claiming a petite department, and they enjoyed telling everyone else in the store that story. Here Kim is hanging with the ladies while checking out her purchase. More northern CT role models for her, since she was very impressed with their knowledge of propane heaters.

Some planting is done ...

Well, we dipped our toes into some landscaping.  Richard from Designing Eden came up with a very nice design for the front of our house and delivered a bunch of mulch and plants.  From there, I dug the holes in the granite and Kim planted.  Here's a couple 'After' shots.

Robbie and Brie immediately began helping with the watering, but I'm pretty sure the plants will survive as they're all native and probably gaining critical nutrients that way.

First neighborhood party at our house August 13

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Sunday ... a day of rest!

We started early today and planted the 'no mow' grass ... no pictures yet of that as I really want to see a few sprouts  before posting.  After that, we focused on building up one of the ledge walls on our back patio.  Here you can see me pulling some granite from the quarry to the back patio.  What you missing is a shot of our pick-up replacing me as we pulled the granite up a hill.

Here's the final product ... we're really proud of this ...  but not looking forward to the morning when we're pretty sure both of us will be suffering from moving these rocks into place.

Kim and I still have a lot of projects that we want to complete before the winter sets in. Among them are  to plant some 'no mow' grass and also to test some wildflowers in the septic area that's now overgrown with weeds.  The first step for both of these was to get some topsoil, aka dirt, delivered. Here are some shots of a half a load dropped off on top of the hill with the rest dropped off at the bottom.  The wheelbarrow will be getting a workout.