Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • The Garden begins to provide

    This week, the garlic was pulled and is curing in the garage. The late potatoes were planted where the corn failed and the pumpkins in the middle of that bed are growing well. The first zucchini were harvested, it is a compact variety and the squash are about 8″ long and an inch in diameter, so not likely to overwhelm. The green beans are flowering and some small beans are developing.

    This afternoon when I went to harvest peas for dinner, I realized that the vines were drying, so I began pulling them and harvesting the peas. After dinner, the rest were pulled. A couple hours of shelling peas, blanching, and freezing and there are about 8 or 9 cups in the freezer, added to about 5 cups of sugar snap peas, and a quart of carrot chunks.

    The first basket full.

    Headed to the freezer.

    Yesterday at the Farmer’s Market, a few quarts of peaches were purchased as we did not get any from our trees this year, and a batch of a favored Peach Sriracha sauce was made and canned for the shelves.

    We have a broody hen, she has been sitting the daily eggs for a couple of days. One of my friends has a rooster and gave me a dozen of her fertile extra eggs which will be tucked under her to see if she will raise some barnyard mutts to add to or replace my older gals, and maybe provide a rooster to help protect them.

    As successes and failures occur in the garden, and as I age and wish for easier gardening, notes are being made on the plan to remind me for next year. I will plant only sugar snap peas and will make sure to trellis them. The variety of shelling peas planted this year is advertised as free standing, but they were a tangle of 5-6 foot long vines, only harvestable by pulling the lot. It did make for a huge compost pile between the pea vines and the weeds that were hidden within the mess and between the bed and the comfrey. Next time I have a strong helper here, the pile needs to be turned. Last year the tomatillos and cucumbers were a mess, so this year the tomatillos are caged like tomatoes and the cucumbers have a trellis. I followed the Square Foot gardening plan which says a tomato plant only needs 1 square foot. I put 3 in a 4 foot row and 6 in a 4 X 4 square and they are too close together. Son 1 made an A frame trellis for his tomatoes a couple of years ago and I think that would help with spacing and harvesting later.

    I now have a 4 x 4 foot bed and a 4 X 8 foot bed idle. In mid July or the first of August, a winter’s worth of carrots, spinach, and chard will be planted there. I am going to figure out how to make cold frames or a mini greenhouse to cover the greens and the carrots will have a thick layer of straw layered over them when freeze threatens.

    The apple and Asian pear trees are heavy with fruit. The deer are beginning to come and nibble at the lower branch fruit, but there will be plenty too high for them to reach for us.

    This year, I pruned all of the lower branches from the grape vine so the vines are about 4 feet off the ground and they are heavy with fruit. I need to shield the grapes from the deer and then decide how the grapes will be used.

    It was difficult to get motivated on the garden this year, but it is nice now that food is coming from it. The last of the spring carrots and the second planting for radishes were harvested earlier this week.

    It will be nice if we get some potatoes and pumpkins to store, and carrots that can be pulled as needed this winter. Adding green beans to the freezer as they mature, and having greens in a cold frame or green house to have fresh will make it worth while. I’m still fighting a battle with the Creeping Charlie and to some extent the Smartweed, but less than a month ago.

    The riding mower was finally repaired and yesterday afternoon, the remaining grass was mowed. This week is true summer, with temperatures in the mid to upper 80’s and rain predicted only as scattered thunder storms. Maybe our hay will finally be able to be mowed and baled.

    Two days ago, I went to my friend’s house and helped them extract honey. That was a new experience and came home with a couple of quarts of very dark delicious honey.

  • Summer

    After a very cool, wet June, we have had two hot sticky days with no rain. More rain and cooler days ahead, but it has allowed walks without umbrellas or raincoats and being able to inspect my hives for the first time since I installed them. This is a very different experience than last year. The two medium boxes for brood on each hive are bursting with honey, eggs, and brood. So many bees. I added a queen excluder to each hive and a honey super on each in hopes of some fall honey. The sourwood is just beginning to bloom so they will be busy, the fields are full of daisies and since we haven’t had a mower in over two weeks, the lawn is full of white and red clover.

    The shelf unit I put on the front porch with houseplants has a Wren nest tucked between pots. I think is was a practice nest as it hasn’t been occupied. I will leave it for a few more days before I remove it.

    Walks have had some wildlife to see, yesterday a box turtle who didn’t seem to like the attention it was getting and today a caterpillar that has been parasitized with several eggs on it’s back.

    The garlic pulled was brought in to the garage and hung in bundles to cure for storage. The garage smells very garlicy now and will until the leaves dry and the skins dry.

    Since we live in a log home, we have had annual problems with Carpenter Bees. They drill holes in the facia boards and lay their eggs. That is less of a problem than once they hatch, the woodpeckers peck at the wood to get the larvae. This year the woodpeckers have been relentless, so we purchased 4 owls with a bell and mylar strip and hung them in strategic places hoping that they will discourage any more early morning pecking and stop the damage they are doing.

    The month is fading away, July and August bring harvest and processing, a busy time.

  • Living local

    As I re-read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable Miracle, a book I reread every couple of years, it re-dedicates me to live locally. We have the best Farmer’s Market I have ever shopped. They are open April through October on Wednesday afternoon and on Saturday mornings year round with more vendors. During winter, there are fewer vendors, but still some products are available including storage vegetables, eggs, meat, breads, and cheese. Each spring, I plant a garden and we have an orchard with 4 kinds of fruit trees and 3 kinds of cultivated berries, but other than tomato sauces, peppers canned and dried, tomatillos for salsas, and cucumbers for pickles, I don’t grow enough variety or quantity to supply us year round. This year, in support of the vendors, I decided to buy extras of items that can be blanched and frozen for winter use. This week was the first week of making these extra purchases and I came home with extra Sugar Snap Peas, celery, and carrots. The peas have been getting added to the freezer for a few weeks as I had extras and are coming to an end. The celery sliced for Mirepoix, the carrots sliced for soups and stews. Herbs are grown here in the garden to be dried and others in the Aerogarden for fresh use. Meats and poultry are available year round so don’t have to be stockpiled. One farm, in addition to beef and eggs, grows corn for meal, oats for oatmeal, and wheat for flour. Being able to watch my flour ground and bagged, unbromated whole wheat with bran is wonderful.

    A bag was brought home, a loaf of artisan bread started last evening that was baked this morning. What doesn’t get used immediately will be frozen so there will be flour for bread this winter as well.

    The finished bread is a little more dense than I had hoped, it was a new recipe that I will tweak in the future.

    After putting the produce away and some frozen, dinner prepared using plenty of fresh vegetables from market and garden to make a salad, a little garden time was enjoyed. This week has been so wet, it was nice to be able to get in there, weed a little, pick berries, and pull the 34 heads of garlic to cure in today’s sun.

    All but two are large and full and this should be enough to last us the year. The fall garlic seed needs to be ordered.

    Soon there will be peas from our garden to enjoy and freeze. And the beans are beginning to have blossoms, the first zucchini is forming, tiny peppers and tomatoes are developing. The apple and Asian pear trees are heavy with fruit to be enjoyed raw or made into sauces later in the fall.

    There was cheese purchased, Garlic Chive Chevre that was enjoyed on the salad, and a weekly treat of a bouquet of flowers from our friend’s farm.

    Keep it close to home if you can, better for the environment, better for your health.

  • Spindles

    Hubby says I have an addiction, not to alcohol, drugs, or other dangerous harmful substances, but to beautiful wood, especially wood that can be used daily.

    This basket holds 5 Jenkins Turkish spindles, 4 Finches, 1 Wren, and a social media friend who lives on the West Coast was able to travel to Black Sheep Gathering, a festival in Oregon this weekend and proxy shopped for me today to add a Pear wood Wren to the mix. There are 4 top whorl drop spindles in the house as well, two that get used when dressed in Colonial garb and presenting fiber use in Colonial times, one that was gifted to me but is so light weight I have trouble keeping it spinning, and one purchased to help support a Ukrainian artist.

    These beautiful works of art are used daily. For a year, they spun the wool to make the breed blanket in 2021.

    This year, the wool to knit the Shetland Hap shawl.

    And now, working through about 30 ounces of Jacob/Alpaca blend and Shetland/Nylon blend that will become a sweater when I settle on a pattern. Both of those wools can be seen in the basket above and the plied ball of them together that will be the yarn for the sweater.

    He mostly was kidding me, as I have been an easy on the budget wife, I hate to shop, I don’t have my hair and nails done, I love to cook, I wear very little jewelry. But I do love my spindles and the calming effect of making yarn on them.

  • Poor Planning

    Times 2. Yesterday while driving into town, the low tire pressure warning came on the fancy electronic dashboard of the newer CRV. The car did not come with a spare, just a tire pump that you plug into the outlet in the console. This was the second time in two days the warning had come on. Having pumped it up in a parking lot the first time. We again stopped in a lot and pumped up the tire and drove to the dealer repair shop to have it checked out/repaired. Unfortunately, we arrived just as the entire shop went on lunch break and the service advisor warned us it would be about two hours because they had all just gone on lunch and there were scheduled appointments to be done as well. We really had no choice as it was obvious that there was a problem with the front tire. The dealership is in a busy, basically industrial area, but we walked off between the industrial park and a small neighborhood and wandered up and down streets for 2 miles of our daily 4 mile walk then sat in the dealership waiting area for the duration, a total of 3.5 hours to pull a nail and plug the tire. Next time, I will try to better schedule our emergency.

    This did allow me a lot of spinning time, as usual attracting much attention as to what I was doing and conversation about what I would do with the yarn.

    We did continue our walk on a nicer trail to finish the remaining 2 miles once we were done and since it was now late afternoon, used a free pizza coupon to share a small pizza and salad for an early dinner.

    Last night’s and today’s knitting has me within 1/4 of the last lace row of the Hap shawl on which my spinning is resting. Once that row is complete, there is only one plain knit row and the stretchy bind off, which adds a stitch for every two you bind off to give it the stretch, so that should take me a good bit of time. Hopefully, it will be finished by tomorrow evening and can be soaked and blocked to shape.

    Today’s poor planning was to actually believe the weather app that indicated that it would be mostly sunny today and tomorrow, so I mixed up another gallon of soapy white vinegar and resprayed areas in the garden paths that the first spraying didn’t fully kill off and then around the outer perimeter of the garden to spray the Smartweed and Creeping Charlie to keep them from migrating back into the garden. We then left to run a couple of errands and take a wood’s walk only to run into light rain on the way home, so probably wasting a gallon of white vinegar this morning.

    This wee one was so close to the house just before we left this morning.

    We recently discovered a park across the road from the river park where we often walk along the trail on the river’s edge. The two parks are joined by a walking/biking tunnel under the road and the park is fully wooded with both a paved bike path and several unpaved walking paths crossing a creek on two wooden bridges. Walking this park gives us 2 miles and then we walk back to the river park and do the second 2. It makes a very pleasant walk.

    Milkweed on the edge of the open meadow.

    Virginia Day flower on the edge of the trail in the woods.

    Virginia Day flowers on the edge of the trail in the woods.

    One of the two tunnels, this one is the rail tunnel between the parks that allows cars into the river park. No photo of the corrugated metal walking tunnel under the road.

    So, the moral is to plan our emergencies in order to not wait long hours, and to not trust the National Weather service app.

  • SeeSaw days

    Typical spring here, hot and humid one day and chilly and gray the next, but the garden grows. Except for the corn. Out of 4 rows in a 12 X 4 foot bed, only two seeds sent up blades. We were due for thunderstorms a couple of days ago, so the bed was reseeded. This may be the last time I try corn. Year before last, there was nothing, last year some came up, but the harvest was pretty paltry for the space it consumed. The only year that corn has ever been “successful” though marginally was the year of the popcorn.

    The seed starts for squash, tomatillos, pumpkins, tomatoes, and peppers were all successful and are doing well planted in the beds. The cucumbers failed on first start, but there are several strong seedlings putting out secondary leaves that are currently being hardened off and soon they will be planted in the last bed.

    The motivation for the garden has been hard to come by this year, and since I am currently unable to be out in the sun due to a chemo cream use on my face, I have to heavily cover with mineral sunscreen, wear a huge hat and limit my exposure. Sunburns as a kid camping with family, as a young adult working as a lifeguard, have come back to haunt me. Usually, anything found by the dermatologist is zapped with liquid nitrogen, but this time is wasn’t in a place they want to spray. At any rate, early or late, very protected sessions are being done. As an adult, I wear long sleeves nearly year round and always wear a hat with a brim when we are out walking. Sun damage from years ago revisits as we age.

    Peas are heavy with blooms and though they are supposed to be a free standing variety, they have toppled all over each other. Soon, peas will be harvested. One of the varieties of spinach is bolting as is the lettuce. The beans are up. The tomatoes, peppers, basil, squash, and tomatillos have been mulched with clean straw, thanks to a friend that was able to get me a couple of bales yesterday. Part of a bale was used to clean the hens coop, a few flakes as mulch and the rest set back in the dry garage for further coop cleaning and garden mulching.

    Now if I can just get the paths under control, figure out how to kill off the smartweed and creeping charlie, I will be happy. As it is upper 70’s today and tomorrow with bright sun, the paths were all sprayed with white vinegar and dish soap. If that shows any level of success, it will be repeated until I win, vinegar is cheap and safe. A truck load of wood chips would be great to have, to put about 4 inches between all the beds. The other frustrating area is the tall grass that grows up the welded wire fence. The line trimmer can’t get under the fence and if it hits the wire, it breaks off the trimming line. I don’t want to use chemicals like Liquid Fence, nor do I want to take down the fence and reset it an inch or two off the ground so I can weed under it. I envy neat gardens with no weeds, no grass in-between beds, no fence needed to thwart the deer, groundhogs (saw one today in the yard), and free ranging chickens. Perhaps the electric mesh type moveable fencing that can be moved away, allow mowing, then re-set would do the trick. I already have the 6V charger. Maybe if the vinegar trick works and I can get woodchips, cardboard can be slipped under the fence wire, heavily mulched on both sides out maybe far enough to keep an edge would work.

    The bees are again protected from the resident bear. A new battery for the 12V charger was ordered and installed. Tested on the deck, it showed a strong charge, so it was taken back to the bee yard, rehung, and attached to the electric fence wire. When it was turned on, it showed only marginal charge on the fence. Because it was a new solar charged battery, it was left alone to charge for a couple days and still only marginal. This morning, the piece of line that connects the wire to the charger was replaced and the fence is again hot. Hopefully, 12 V will deter the furry beasts.

  • Different types of challenges

    There are fun challenges, physical challenges, financial challenges, personal challenges, mental challenges, and many more.

    We face various challenges daily with different mindsets. Sometimes our challenges require us to buck up and tough it out. Sometimes our challenges overwhelm and send us spiraling downward. Or upward when we overcome them.

    The social media spindle group to which I subscribe offers monthly challenges. Some have definite guidelines, others are to set your own and then strive to fulfill them. This past month, the challenge was to spin color, it could be your favorite, one you don’t like, one that is new to you. I had be given a two samples from a braid of Rambouillet wool. They came with two new spindles, one I won the lottery to be able to purchase, the second, a gift from hubby for our 45th anniversary. One sample was browns, whites, and teal, the second was just the teal. I reached out to the indie dyer from whom the Jenkins (spindle maker and his wife who does all the labelling, marketing, and packaging) had obtained it. She was able to send me a 4 ounce package of just the teal, a color I generally lean toward (my phone case, some accessories, etc).

    All month long I have been spinning this wool, mostly on my smaller Jenkins Finch style Turkish spindles, a little on my Golding drop spindle with a lovely inset of Sunflowers, painted by a Ukranian artist. The month is coming to a close and as of yesterday, there was still about 1/3 of the package of wool to be spun. Several ounces into spinning it, I no longer cared for the color and the wool, a breed I had only sampled before reminded me too much of another breed I don’t care to spin. Basically, wanting to just quit on it.

    Yesterday, the local spinning group to which I below, not just the couple of neighbors that I spin with weekly, held it’s annual front deck spin in hosted by one of the members and her DH. This all afternoon event includes a pot luck lunch and in addition to the regulars that can attend the one afternoon a week meet up, folks from as far away as about 4 hours, who many of us know from retreats, also attend. An opportunity to see some friends only seen a couple of times a year is wonderful. I had been looking for a small travel spinning wheel, and the couple from 4 hours away had one they were willing to part with. They brought it with them yesterday for me to purchase.

    A new challenge, plying the wool spun all month on a wheel I had never previously used, outdoors in the chilly breeze. It took a little while to get the tension and ratio right for the fine, too soft almost threadlike singles of the spindle spun wool, but it was accomplished, hopefully with enough twist to be good yarn.

    And once home after spinning more on the spindles at the event, a bit was set aside to fulfill the last week of the challenge and the remaining wool is being spun on the new wheel to be plied later today or this evening. It is spinning to the same yarn weight on the wheel, so there should be a nice, light weight, large yardage, 4 ounce skein when the two are combined. It may get set aside until the color again appeals to be to made into a project, or the skein may become a door prize or gift exchange item for a later event.

    This project has presented several different types of challenges, some self imposed, some imposed by other reasons, but it almost done.

    Next month, a more preferred fiber for spinning will be chosen as it will be a practice for the Tour de Fleece challenge in July. Our group doesn’t compete in any of the larger Tour de Fleece challenges with other groups, it is just a “for fun” challenge within our group with some prizes at the end. I will definitely pick a wool with some color variation and of a breed that I enjoy spinning. Rambouillet is now added to the list to not spin again in the future. I definitely don’t prefer the very soft, shorter fibered wools. I want a bit of substance in my spin.

  • Be Local

    There are variations of bumper stickers around to remind us to keep our money close to home, to support local businesses, local farmers, local crafters. I particularly endorse this mindset. When we eat out, we try to go to the local restaurants, yes, they do have to purchase some goods trucked from many miles away, but many also support the local farmers and purchase their goods when available. We do a weekly trip to the local Farmers’ Market, where they can sell nothing grown more than 50 miles from it, so all meats, eggs, vegetables, and fruits are grown locally. The meat vendors prescribe to the practice of pasture raising their animals and do not use feedlots to “fatten” them up before processing. The produce vendors practice organic methods of growing, even if they don’t all go through the expensive and arduous process of becoming certified. Many of them do use big hoop houses to extend the seasons, so often, greens, radishes, and pea shoots are available long before and after my gardens can provide.

    Every couple of years, I reread, Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, of her family’s one year adventure to only eat what they could grow or purchase from local farmers. It helps me to renew my resolve to try to keep it local. We aren’t as dedicated as they were, continuing to purchase fresh fruit and frozen berries out of season that has been hauled from Mexico or California during the off seasons. But we do have an orchard with 4 different fruit trees and 3 different berries to enjoy in season as well as Wine berries and wild blackberries growing around the hayfields of the farm that can also be picked when the hay is mowed and you can get to them. This year, it was harder to get going on the garden for some reason, though it is now all planted. I am currently rereading her book to jump start my motivation to stay on it. The loss of nearly half my hens in the past few months was difficult, but the remaining 7 are providing enough eggs for daughter’s family and our use.

    As I go to deal with the hens in the morning, I walk along the north edge of the vegetable garden and note the first asparagus tips emerge, then the daily or near daily venture in to cut the ones that are 6 to 8″ tall. This allows me to walk past the garlic and see it’s progress, and up past the peas, spinach, carrots, and radishes. The other side of the asparagus bed are the beans. This morning, a large handful of asparagus was cut and the garlic had scapes, so they were snapped off to bring in as well. This sent me back out with scissors to cut the large spinach leaves with the idea that sauteed garlic scapes and spinach would be a delightful addition to dinner. I will also enjoy some of the asparagus (not hubby’s favorite). With an egg for my protein, that will be a wonderful dinner if a healthy starch is added in the form of brown rice, sweet potato, slice of local whole grain sourdough bread, or even a baked or roasted white potato. He will get some meat with his. It doesn’t get any fresher or more local than this.

    The asparagus will soon come to an end so they can grow the tall ferny tops to provide the crowns with the necessary food to provide us with stalks next spring. When the weather gets consistently warmer, the spinach will bolt and it too will end until a fall planting can be made. The second crop of radishes is up, the peas are flowering, the beans are sprouting, and all of the starts planted out a few days ago are thriving. It took some self motivation to get going this year, but the garden is providing and will continue on for the next few months. The Farmers’ Market will still be visited for vegetables I don’t grow, meats for hubby and visitors, and an occasional loaf of sourdough bread or chunk of local cheese. We strive to be local, and are thankful for the garden, orchard, and local Farmers’ Market that is the best one I have ever visited.

  • Let’s Try Again

    The farm’s (my) bee experiment last year was a total failure. Early this spring, two nuks were ordered from a local beekeeper, member of the same organization I joined for help. Son 2 who started this adventure on our farm, picked up all of the deep boxes and frames to expand his hives where he lives. Because of my age, strength, and a recently ruptured bicep, I decided to work only with medium boxes and frames. This morning, I received a text saying my bees were ready to pick up and could I come today. That wasn’t a problem, the graduation ceremony at the University was very early today, so traffic was not as bad as the last few days.

    We picked them up, put them in the cool garage, and went to take our walk. Once home, equipment was gathered, the boxes set up on the stands with the bottoms in place. The new spacers and entrance reducers were installed, the extra frames that would be needed to fill in the five from the nuk were put in place and finally, donned the very hot bee jacket with veil and gloves. The nuk boxes were opened and bees transferred to their new homes. The nuks were much better than the ones we started with last year, lots of bees, lots of capped brood, and two good frames of stores.

    They will be left to settle in for a couple of weeks, then I will examine them and make sure that all is well. The locust and basswood trees are in full bloom right now, so nectar flow should be good and hopefully, there will be greater success this year.

    Again, I will try to be a beekeeper.

  • Spring and Memories

    One summer day about 20 some years ago, while visiting my Dad, he was showing me his gardens and what he had planted that year. He loved his flower gardens and had a vegetable garden at the home I grew up in and tried at the home he and my stepmom bought after they married, but it was too shady for too much success. As we walked around from bed to bed, tucked between a couple of large azaleas, spilling blossoms from pots was a tipped wooden wheelbarrow. I loved it and commented on it to learn that he had made it himself. Fast forward a couple of years, and we had just sold the house that we had owned in Virginia Beach in preparation for the construction of this home in the mountains and we had moved into a rental house. He showed up in early summer, maybe around Mother’s Day with a wooden wheelbarrow he had made for me.

    I followed his example and a similar idea seen in a magazine, spilling a partial bag of potting soil from the tipped barrow with potted blooming plants cascading out and filling the remaining space. The barrow was used in that spot for two years, and then it was time to divide and move. Much of the furniture was moved with me to an apartment in the mountains, the rest to an apartment for younger son and his Dad in Virginia Beach until his retirement and move here with me. The outdoor items and gardening tools moved to the barn on the site of our current home. The barrow got broken as smaller items were wedged in the truck. It was 15 months before I got into the new house and fall and winter were looming, so the little barrow sat in the barn, mostly forgotten and in need of repair. It was finally brought down to the house, and repaired, but my repairs were not strong enough to last but a couple of years. Last year, a better, sturdier repair was made and it was moved up on the front sheltered porch and held the houseplants summering out along with a pot of a flowering something.

    We had finished re-staining the porch surfaces and putting down mats to prevent the pups nails from marring the newly re-painted porch.

    Yesterday, the year’s dust was hosed off the floor and wooden porch furniture and the summering plants put out on one of the folding wooden shelf units by the front door. The little barrow was wheeled off the porch with the plan to again fill it will flowers to help dress up the front that took a beating this past winter between the cold, wind, and scratching hens. All of the Nandina bushes looked like they had died. All are beginning to show some new leafing out but mostly are brown masses of sticks. This evening, we stopped at Lowes and purchased a flat of red and one of while impatiens and a flat of the trailing sweet potato vines. When we got home, all of the empty terracotta pots and a left over hanging basket pot from last year were potted up and the little barrow again filled with flowers.

    It is going to take some TLC while they settle in and grow to fill the pots and trail over the edges, but it brings back fond memories of my Dad and his gardens.

    The morning in the vegetable garden yielded a harvest of radishes and asparagus. The 7 remaining hens are providing 3 or 4 eggs a day and as long as they do, daughter and I will be okay.

    As there was already a bag of asparagus in the refrigerator, these and enough of the refrigerated ones were cut to quart jar length and the first seasonal preserve started, a jar of fermented asparagus pickles.

    While out mowing yesterday afternoon, baby apples and baby Asian pears look plentiful. Unfortunately, there will be no peaches, plums, or figs. The peach and plum trees are leafed out, but their blooms came out just with a freeze. The fig bush just did not survive the winter at all. Figs not in a greenhouse are very iffy in this planting zone. I nursed it along for 4 years and got fruit for one.

    We are looking at contouring the beds in front of the north facing porch, adding more shrubs while hoping the Nandinas come back and covering with a good layer of mulch. For 16 years we have discussed a walkway from the front stoop to the driveway, so that too is being considered. We may have to recruit a couple of strong grandsons to help get it done.