cascadian telegrams

ninja or mythbuster?

Malcolm has decided that he will be either a professional ninja or one of the MythBusters when he grows up.  Since the former is rather unlikely, we’re betting on the latter.

That means he needs a place to create bombs from diet coke and mentos like the MythBusters, an Iron Man costume like this one on Instructables and other things that make a mess and/or require a hot glue gun, soldering iron or arc welder.  This means a workbench.  So I created this one for him.. I think it’s dead sexy, what do you think?

OK you can stop laughing now.

The best part is that most of it came from lumber we had lying around from the fence and other projects.  I bought the peg board (and painted it ‘Bengal Orange’, just because I can) and some doubled-up 3/4” sign board for the top, plus shop lights but the rest was left-over 4x4 post.

The shop was quite a mess prior to this.  Once I sorted everything out, I realized I had, like, 5 hammers and 4 hacksaws, because I couldn’t find one before and bought another one.  More than once.  I hope to avoid this phenomenon for a while.

garden path project weekend

man we are sore from removing 5-10 yards of fill and adding nearly 10,000 lbs of gravel, but our gravel garden path is ‘in’.

   

We have lots of lavender from the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale, including Hidcote, English and Spanish varieties of different heights, plus some herbs and other herbaceous border plants for along the path.  By the time we’re done, none of the lousy grass sod we laid down last season will remain.  And not a moment too soon… it is crap.

This is quite literally ‘laying the groundwork’ for our garden but hopefully now the more fun part of adding plants begins in earnest.

more anchor tenants in the garden

after seeing Penguins I spent the rest of the day digging a big hole and planting a Coral Bark Japanese Maple along our fence.  That’s three new ‘anchor tenants’ in our garden including the ‘Everred’ Laceleaf Japanese Maple 

 

and a Hardy Kiwi to grow on the trellis over the gate.

The kiwi produces grape-sized kiwi fruit without the skin, fuzz or seeds, I’m excited to see what it produces!

Our work for the weekend is far from over though:  We have about 9000 lbs of gravel to set in for our garden path, and I’m going to pop by the Edible Plant Sale at Seattle Tilth up the road tomorrow to pick up cherry tomatoes for my friends.   I’m also on the hunt for an olive tree as I’ve read that arbequina spanish olives do OK here, and I’ve got just the spot (a sunny, western, warm concrete wall) for it!

Tree snaps from today are here.

spring is coming – new anchor tenants

It’s stil chilly, but we’re getting a taste of that warm, golden, west coast sun that lets you know that spring isn’t far away.  We’ve planted a few more ‘anchor tenants’ in the yard:  A magnolia, a wisteria and a japanese black pine shrub… still looking for a nice, multi-stem paperbark maple for the front corner though

  

Also Susan planted some rosemary around the rocks in the front and has bought some vegetable seeds… it will be nice to have a garden again, it’s been a few years.  She also picked up some nice indoor plants

     

plus we have some nice plants that our friend Elizabeth gave us to transplant (thanks E!).

the memory table

well it took 3 attempts – our builder friend Greg Nilan tried twice to get get the liquid fiberglass to set in our too-cold garage, and finally, Jesse and Mark used liquid epoxy and set it up in Mark’s apartment (cheers Mark!) but we have our ‘memory table’ in the kitchen cubby.

It’s mostly people and places from our time in Europe over the last 3 years… we didn’t want any more wood in the kitchen (it’s black-stained cherry) and we wanted something to personalize the space… et voila.  Clicking on the link on the tabletop above will take you to the Flickr photo page, where you can click on each photo to see it in detail and learn what the picture is about.  Some of you will find yourselves immortalized in there ;).

As a fringe benefit, it’s an easier cleanup for a messy six year-old boy than our formal dining table.

bamboo

I finished getting our bamboos into the ground today

as Susan mentioned it was back-breaking work.  We had to dig deep (~30") holes for each to put in 25"-29" rhizome barriers around each bed so that they don't take over the neighborhood, so it was a lot of dirt shifted to the planter bed near the backdoor... I use the term 'dirt' loosely given the crap we dug up: mostly gravel, hard pan clay and a bit of construction waste... awful stuff.  I amended with lots of compost and topped off with bark mulch but no fertilizing for the first month.

The crap photos don't really do justice, and as you can see they won't hide my neighbor's lovely paint job (nor give us privacy on the porch) for a while, but they will, and probably within 2-3 years.  The p. nigra at the back is a black timber variety which will grow to 30' with 2-2.5"canes, and  the p. bissetii to its right will grow to 25' while the p. a. 'Flavescens Inversa' to the left should reach 30' as well.

    

 

In front of those is an oval bed with some smaller, clumping varieties: a fargesia sp. 'Scabrida' that has very interesting, orangy canes; a small p. fortunei with nice white-striped leaves and an even smaller, bushy 'dwarf whitestripe' which probably won't exceed 2' in height.

Eventually the nearer (to the porch) bed with the clumping varieties should provide a nice visual counterpoint to the taller species near the fence.

We left a good amount of space (minimum 2') around each bed for a gravel pathway and a large clearing area between the front and rear beds for a bench or maybe a play house for Malcolm someday.  Once the bamboo grows up tall he can hide back there and make it his secret place.

again, apologies for the awful snaps... just wanted to capture the moment.

landscaping and house update

apologies.  Aside from the occasional political rant, I've been dark on this blog for months.  That's because we've been slaving away on landscaping (sod & grass seed, stone walls, fencing/gates etc.) for a few months and between that and a busy work schedule I've been knackered.  Here is my list from the past few months:

 

• 90 + 20 2' field stone wall
• 'open' 4' high fence mixing Ipe (Brazilian Iron Wood), bamboo and fir
• 8' high privacy fence of bamboo and fir
• field stone retaining wall/ planter bed along the back of the house between the house and garage
• around 2000 sq ft of lawn (both rolled sod and grass seed... kind of a science experiment) on 26 yards of dirt and 5 yards of gravel
• 14' x 10' slate patio
• Bamboo trees/plans (still in their pots since last week, alas)

     

We shifted a lot of dirt, gravel, stone, sod and wood the past few months... all the while sweating like pigs and drinking like sailors.  But I must admit it feels great to do all that manual work after years of being a desk jockey.  It is like your body taps you on the shoulder and says:  'hey stupid... this is what you're supposed to be doing... everyday!". 

We could not have got all this done without great effort from my dad who placed most of the long stone wall and framed the front fence... plus he gave me a great design based on our needs.  Thanks dad!

The good news is that we're done, basically, with the house.  The builders have a few very small items left to do, and the city is fighting with me over repair of the alleyway, but really... we're done.

<Big, slow, deep breath/>

And now, on to trees and plants... the fun part.  We've started with some bamboo plants in the back (from Stan the Bamboo Man over in neighboring Greenwood) but we'll have to work on the 'anchor tenants' over the next few months.

dirty weekend

no not that you mucky pervs :) -- actual dirt.  Twenty five yards of it to be precise. 

We got a huge load of dirt on Saturday to get the grade of the lot up close to final grade and to put down some nicer stuff for grass, plants and trees to take root in (the 'vashon till' from the excavation is like hardpan clay and tough as rock). 

Unfortunately the truck couldn't dump the dirt up in the yard because of overhead cables in the way, so we had to shift 21 yards of dirt over two days from the alleyway up to the yard 4' above the street. 

Of course it was super hot and sunny the whole weekend, I haven't sweated so much in ages (I had salt rings on my shirt, like a tree, by the end of the day).  My dad, bless 'em, helped me shift dirt on Saturday and my younger, stronger canuck friend Stephen stepped in on Sunday, while Susan pushed the big piles in the yard into something resembling final grade.

Man it was hard work.  My arms were really sore on Monday.  But it is satisfying to do some 'honest work' once in a while.

No snaps alas, but I'll take some this week.  On to the retaining wall , grass sod and fencing!

fire!

In the "what else could possibly go wrong?" dep't:

My friend and temp-flatmate John dropped at the house last Thursday on the way in to work so I could have a chat w/the builders.  "Oh look", I said, "the windows are all open.  They must be painting or using solvents or something."

Walking toward the house I saw my neighbor Julie, who hurried over to talk to me.

"Erm, did you hear about the fire?"

(me, eyes widening) "What fire?"

Apparently Julie, her husband Mark and her sister Janette were sitting on their porch the previous evening when the saw tall flames across the street in our living room!  They ran across and started looking for a hose, while Janette, who (as it happens) is a Seattle firefighter, kicked in the front door to get to the flames while Mark arrived with a hose and started dousing the fire.

Meanwhile, Bob the plumber, who had been working down in the basement the entire time, heard the commotion and ran upstairs to where the fire and ensuing frenzy.

"Who are you?" demanded Janette, thinking he was an arsonist.  When he started to clean up the mess with his shop vacuum, she demanded that he stop saying it was a crime scene and that the Seattle Fire Dep't. was on the way, as more neighbors and our builders (whom Bob had called) showed up on the site.  Every one but me, as it happens, as I had turned off my phone for the evening and was enjoying a glass of wine and a chat up the street @ John and Jacki's place while all of this took place.... I didn't find out until the next morning.

-- Anyway --

As it turned out, the fire had been caused by a worker who had been oiling window trim with linseed oil.  If you've ever worked with the stuff before, you've probably seen the warnings that you need to store oiled rags with linseed in an airtight container or a bucket of water as they can spontaneously combust (I've felt them get warm but never seen them catch fire).  Well one of the workers through the linseed oil rags into a trash bin in the middle of the living room floor and sure enough they caught fire a few hours later.

We were super lucky.  Aside from a lot of smoke and some damaged flooring where the trash bin had melted, and the broken door jamb where Janette had kicked it in, everything was fine.  A few more minutes of burning, or if the fire started without anyone noticing a few hours later, the whole place could have gone up in flames.  And god knows what could have happened to Bob the plumber in the basement if he'd become trapped in the basement with gas lines etc. around him and no easy escape.

I have some great neighbors.  But no more housewarming presents thanks.  This one was a tad too literal for my taste.

we are getting there: the stucco and most of the exterior trim is done; the garage is done, the radiant heat tubing is laid in, the flooring in the basement and attic are (nearly) done and the flooring on the 1st and second floor are this week.  Also as you can see the forms are set for the retaining wall -- the concrete will be poured on Tuesday.

         

As you can see there are paint samples everywhere in the house... we're figuring out colors.  Jesse the designer has some colors in mind where he's alternated 70/60/50/40% gradation of the same color on adjacent walls... it makes a nice depth effect and brings the light in.

It is a race to June 5th when our furniture arrives after nearly a year since we left Denmark.  Our goal is to have one bathroom done and live in the basement until the house is completed which will be close to July.  With a little luck we will be in the house on June 5th.