eucalyptus fuss

The freakish cold snap we had recently was perfect for attacking the overgrown garden at the house.  I delayed painting for two days while I dug up most of the invasive vines (there's still a 2' x 2' patch that I haven't quite gotten to yet).  Then I dragged all of the sun-loving perennials around and stacked them around the edge of the bed while I contemplated placement.

True to my Type A roots, I'd made a spreadsheet detailing height, bloom time, color, light needs, and spread.  Armed with this formidable document, I placed the pots around the bed...

...and started digging.  A side note:  every time I do something scary like this, my mind goes back to a passage from one of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Laura hated sewing, and fabric was expensive.  She splurged on several yards of lawn cotton, a very nice but thin fabric that's harder to work with because of its delicate nature.  She shrunk back from the pile, afraid to make a mistake and ruin the fabric.  But Ma "made the pattern for the waist and fearlessly cut the lawn."  I always think of Ma seizing her cutting shears whenever I have to do a scary project like this, where there's potential for major loss of time and money from my ineptitude (height/color proportions totally off, spacing too close/far, holes not deep/wide enough, plants wither and die after so much time and money spent). Funny how those books have been so influential.

Back to the plants.  At least they're in the ground!

 
The shade section too.  Columbines, transplanted bleeding hearts, solomon's seal, ferns, fall anemones...it could be beautiful in a couple of years.

Meanwhile, Todd has been ripping out carpet from upstairs and taking it to the barn, where it will be stored until I drag it out into the fields to kill down weeds for another garden. 

He has good company back there.  In one of the many fence post nesting boxes, a tree swallow couple has set up house!

And a family of woodchucks is living under the chicken coop!

They are fairly tame: if I stand quietly for a few minutes, they'll come out for food.  Now, woodchucks are fairly damaging.  They make big underground tunnels, which will undermine the foundation of buildings they've made dens beneath, and they eat vegetables and fruit, which is bad for the garden I'm planning in the area.  As I've mentioned, we're planning to tear down and rebuild this chicken coop.  Since these woodchucks are 'teenagers' and will 'fly the coop' soon, we'll time our rebuild so that we don't disturb any young nestlings, and give the oldsters plenty of time to make a new den before winter.  When we build, we'll sink wire into the ground around the foundation to keep out groundhogs and predators like foxes and raccoons.  Someone on a nature forum gave me a good tip:  "Put a radio in the coop and dial it to NPR.  Woodchucks don't like the sound of human voices and won't try to re-nest in the area."  That's our plan!

I love walking out there...

...but house demands have kept me inside.  I've been painting for 2 weeks.  Two rooms need a final coat, plus trim, so the end is in sight.  But I'm still obsessing over kitchen wallpaper.

The one that Todd and I like the best has also been a top-rated selection by a couple of visitors:  a watercolor rendition of eucalyptus sprigs.  It is a PERFECT match to the trim/cabinets and feels fresh and light.

I had no idea that wallpaper was so expensive, though!  It will cost SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS to wallpaper our tiny kitchen.  Worse, I've read terrible reviews about Spoonflower, the company selling this particular design:  that they basically print designs on cheap fabric and low-quality wallpaper, and customer service is a nightmare.  They do have an equal amount of rave reviews, though, and the sample I received seemed really nice, so I will continue to wrestle with this decision for a little while longer. 

At least we've purchased the bathroom wallpaper and will get started on hanging in the next couple of weeks.  Anthropologie has amazing wallpaper and it's actually less expensive than you'd think.  I got this roll on sale for around $60 and it's enough to cover 3 walls, which is just what I wanted. 

The cooler weather has been nice for doing my work this week:  clearing beds, planting perennials, and painting with all windows open. Borga likes the work, too - mainly because she makes nests in the carpet pad that we're dragging away.

The cats love it, because I've brought the quilts back out, and there's nothing they love more than a quilt snuggle.

Hopefully they'll be snuggling up at the new house pretty soon.

Have a nice week!