Archive for category Around the house
Hunkered Down
Posted by nbdog in Around the house, Weather on 8-Dec-2012
It’s the first really wintery weekend this year so I’m hunkered down working on Christmas and seasonal projects. I continue to tinker with my U.S. stamp collection. I’ve been adding images to the database, a tedious task but one that adds a lot to the browsing experience.
The temperature was below 40 degrees this morning and the snow is almost down to our elevation. But mostly, it’s just gray. Here’s the view from my office window–of course, there are snow-covered mountains lurking behind the dreary fog:
New Wheels
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 12-Oct-2012
After nearly 140,000 miles, we’ve retired the Volvo station wagon and moved up to an Acura RDX SUV. We considered several other makes and test drove the Honda CRX and Volvo XC60. We finally decided the Acura had the most bang for the buck. Many of the RDX’s standard features were add-ons for the Volvo and the Lexus was just too pricey to begin with.
Elk Corner “Remodel”
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 23-Sep-2012
We long-ago dubbed the northwest corner of our lot “Elk Corner” because it was always the preferred spot for the elk to enter our yard, even after my initial attempts to fence them out. We solved the hooved intruders problem a few years ago with our eight-foot high fence but that corner was never a very attractive area. The cranberry viburnum and osmanthus we planted there in spring of 2011 never thrived and the spot just looked kind of drab, especially after the an ice storm last winter kind of mutilated the Washington hawthorn.
So out came the hawthorn and osmanthus. We added another variety of cranberry viburnum, native snowberry and some small rhododendrons near the neighbor’s fence and some ferns and hosta under the old dogwood. We widened the gravel path and added a bench and bird bath. It’s really a pleasant little retreat now and should be really nice in the fall and spring as leaves, flowers and berries add seasonal color.
Wildfires Smoke in Snoqualmie Valley
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 18-Sep-2012
Smoke from the wildfires east of the Cascades has been drifting into our valley for several weeks now. Some days are very hazy and the smell of smoke very intense. This is a view from Snoqualmie Point Park, just on the north side of I-90 near North Bend. Normally, there’s a whole series of peaks visible to the right of Mt. Si at the center of this vista.
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Fernlandia
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 15-Sep-2012
The largest single area of our gardens is a heavily-shaded 30×60 plot just about in the middle of the wooded back half of our lot. In the spring of 2010 I thinned out the native sallal and wild vines and blackberries and we planted a few rhododendrons along with four Aucuba. But it has always looked kind of stark with no real personality. In a trip to one of the local nurseries Trisha discovered Royal Ferns and brought a few home. That set off an unplanned planting frenzy featuring the Royal Ferns, Tassel Ferns and Autumn Ferns to go with the rhododendron, Aucuba and some native wood and deer ferns. We’ve renamed the space “Fernlandia” for the 47 ferns who now live there. It should be beautiful next spring when this collection emerges and matures.
Fernlandia
New Garage Doors
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 11-Sep-2012
After years of worrying that our aging garage doors might come crashing down on the cars –or us– we finally did a basic clearing out of the garage and got new doors and overhead openers installed. What a treat! No more listening to the groans of warped wood and misaligned tracks. The lights turn on automatically and the doors close themselves if we forget to. We are now wondering why we waited over a decade to make the change.
New garage doors with old ones in the inset
Pileated Woodpecker Back… with a Baby!
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 9-Aug-2012
The pileated woodpecker who has occasionally visited us over the past two summers made an appearance again this morning; this time with a youngster. These critters are pretty shy so I could only get a photo through the kitchen window; thus it’s a little fuzzy. These birds are so cool.
Rainy End of May
Posted by nbdog in Around the house, Weather on 31-May-2012
It’s a typical rainy spring morning but ever so beautiful. Here’s our house framed by a cloud-shrouded Mt. Si…
… and a view of a small area of our little garden that I began work on when I retired in February of 2010.
Spring in the Back Yard
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 30-May-2012
It’s so peaceful sitting in the area of the back yard we re-landscaped last year. The rhododendrons and azaleas are still smallish but everything is so lush and nearly always there’s a serenade of scores of birds feeding in the nearby maple. Life is good.
New Fence Behind the Garage
Posted by nbdog in Around the house on 13-May-2012
OK, I know, it’s just utilitarian storage space but the area behind our garage has always been if not an eyesore, at least homely. When we first moved in it has this little gray cedar fence enclosure with a bunch of rocks and construction rubble and weeds next to it. Over the years I managed to get grass to grow, we added shrubs and perennials, bark mulch and –finally– replaced the very ugly and not very squared up cedar fence. It’s still a bit skewed thanks to the massive concrete slab that has settled off level. But with the new wood and natural stain it’s a huge upgrade from what we’ve had and it nicely hides the heat pump and back-up generator.
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