The Garden

Yes, Russell, the blog is finally up! The excavators finished the stone wall for the garden area and along the side of the house. Most of the very large stones have been used up, but you can see a pile of small-ish rocks on the uphill side of this shot. These left-overs are all move-able by us, except for one enormous boulder that even the excavator had trouble with. We aren't sure what to do with that one yet. Maybe we will support it, dig out the ground underneath it, and then drop it into a hole. No doubt we have about 6 inches of dirt under it before we hit bedrock. :) We had the soil tested, and Andy is laying some lyme down to cut down on the natural acidity.
Here you can see the lawn coming in a bit thicker, as well as the stone wall that has been added to the SE corner of the house.

More lyme. One of these stones, about where Ethan is standing, has a visible bore hole from when the blasting guys drilled into the bedrock to plant the explosives. Pretty cool stuff.

We raked in the lyme, and then got busy planting. Mindy mapped out the rows on a nice grid of graph paper, so we had very detailed plans to follow. It is great to have such a flat space to plant on.

Same garden, but a few days later. Can you spot the very sad looking rhubarb?

A closer picture of our very sad-looking rhubarb. It has since been joined by several of its brethren, so now we have an entire row of leafy sadness.

Our Stihl saw ran beautifully, until one day it didn't. The cylinder and piston are now scored beyond use. We will either swap out the 290 cylinder/piston assembly for the 390 pieces, or sell it as is. Not sure yet. In any case, we need a reliable saw, and we chose a Husqvarna 346xp this time. Same power, much less weight, and it is built to a higher standard than our Stihl 290 was. We liked them both, but the new tool is in a different class. Old and busted, meet the new hotness.

Andy and Chris enjoyed a great road-trip with Dad in the summer of 1986 when they travelled over the mountains from Charlemont, MA to Troy, NY to pick up a brand new TroyBilt Horse Rototiller. The tiller lives in Chester, now, and while the tool itself is built like a tank, the original Tecumseh engine decided it had had enough. So... Old and busted, meet the new hotness. Now we're ready to tackle some work.

Andy and Chris spent a frustrating hour last week torn between two tasks... the fun of an engine swap on the tiller, and the dreary option of hanging window boxes. Yes, the window boxes look great, and we do love to make our wives happy, but come on! The cold frames are partially disassembled in this shot, and are entirely cleared away by the time of this post. We have scraped away a lot of the extra sand and gravel from the front of the house and are preparing for some dirt so we can seed and plant the area in front of the house. No, we don't park there anymore.

Here you can see the remaining window boxes fully hung. The two satellite windows are empty for now - those planters were put in the kitchen windows instead, where they would be more enjoyed from inside the house.

Karen and Chris went for a hike with some friends on Memorial Day. We set out to hike Alander Mountain, and ended up somewhere else entirely. The weather was perfect, the company was fun, and the view turned out pretty decent, too. This picture is looking West into NY, from a non-summit along the trail between Alander and Frissell mountains in Mt. Washington State Park, SW Massachusetts.