Too Hot To Work II - Garden Tours

First a tour of my garden.

Huge Queen Anne's Lace this year in the pasture.

Tomatoes are four feet tall in my homemade compost.  Since this photo, they are now loaded up with tomatoes!

Pasture is full of butterfly weed.

Magnolias starting to bloom.

Gardenias, oh the fragrance!

The usual afternoon thunderstorm coming in.

Our first garden tour in Asheville on Father's Day, a mini version of the Atlanta Botanical Gardens tour.  

Cooler weather now here, back to the reno!

Oh, we also transported Lacey.  She came from an Alabama shelter.  Someone drove her to Bob in Atlanta, he brought her home and she spent the night with us.  I drove her to Charlotte the next day.  She is with Heart Rescue of NY thanks to Toni Roman!

Too Hot to Work!

With temps in the high 90s, I thought a hike in the Pisgah Forest would be just the thing to cool off.

The Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy was having a two-mile hike with 40 people on private land they acquired with seven waterfalls.  I also thought it would be a good way to meet some people interested in the outdoors.

Jody, with the backpack, was our trail guide.  She was a new transplant from Chicago.  Everyone I met was from somewhere else, NY, OH, IN, IL. 

A lot of moss covered most of the trail, which was two miles out of the 15 miles that have been completed so far on the acquired 800 acres.

There were 17 switchbacks all at once to the bottom of Connestee Falls. 

Jody and Dave, one of the 10 men working on the trails.  He and others are retired and dedicated to creating trails on this property.  They do all the work by hand, taking down trees, digging out paths, putting up handrails, and making stone stairs.  I can't believe he is in his late 60s!  

I was very happy to have stairs and handrails when doing the switchbacks.  I thanked Dave for that!  

Looking forward to the next hike with this group.  This next week is going to be just as hot, so there is a luncheon with friends and a garden tour up in Asheville.  Heat is a good excuse not to renovate!

Some Tedious Jobs Accomplished

The herb garden is completed, wire out, seeds planted, stepping stones placed. 

Roman my big blue chow loves his photo taken.  He has already dug up my seeds twice and made a nice bed out of the soft dirt, hence the big smile on his face. . .  me, not so much.

Nasturtiums are blooming.

Thyme, dill, basil are sprouting with some zinnias and black hollyhocks thrown in for color.

I needed a little color while waiting for our painter to begin, so I decided to paint the back door into the herb garden and the potting shed window and door an orange-red.  No other windows or doors will be painted this color, the rest will be painted the same color as the walls.

Potting Shed

I still need to paint the strap hinges black.  I actually have some newly-forged strap hinges exactly like these in my Etsy shop, TinyFarmhouseSurplus.

The chosen paint color for the outside wood walls will be Benjamin Moore's "Clove Brown" which is the color I used in my sunroom.  It goes perfectly with the brick.  Our painter, Mike, aka Shaggy (there's a good reason for that nickname) has a job on his hands, though, a lot of time-consuming prep work.

Found the perfect spot for my piece of acorn ironwork.  I don't know what this "frame" was for, but it fits perfectly and is under the eave and won't get wet and rusty. 

I now am bit by bit removing ivy from the brick walls.  I started doing this while my old cat is outside enjoying the sun and I needed something to keep me occupied.  I have to keep my eye on her because my chows would terrorize her, so she gets some cat time outside while I get some ivy off the walls. This is a very tedious job!

It looks like at one time the owners actually wanted the ivy on the walls because there are a lot of metal hooks in the brick which will also have to be removed.

Some future improvements will include a new roof . . . someday.  I wish I could have it now.  I have been carrying around a sample metal shingle that I want to use, and on our way to hike I spied an old farmhouse with my roof and took some photos to show what the whole roof will eventually look like.

This is the single galvanized shingle sample I got from the roofing company.  I think it will look fantastic on this house. 

These two wooden makeshift railings out the back door into the herb garden are hideous, but needed.  I found that out with a big ice storm this winter, but I think I can eliminate the one on the left  and just have one on the right.  The brick walkway I uncovered earlier is inaccessible with this railing in the way.  

This is a new handrail found on Ebay.  I love the simplicity of it and the straight lines.  It will look so much better than the wood.  So as I continue the slow as snails renovation, I'm sure there will be many more ideas for things that I can improve on with this little money pit.  Next on the agenda is buying my roof mounts for my weathervanes and getting them up, so that will probably be my next post!