Memorial Weekend May 2019

Memorial Weekend 2019 .. things are leafing out and the plum, pear and cherry tree blossoms are opened up. In the photo above you can see one of our plum trees to the left of the front steps, there is a Moonglow pear tree to the right of the front steps, and the 5 on 1 pear tree is just to the right of that by the ramp. There are several other pear trees, a Bartlett to the right of that tree at the corner of the deck and an Ayres pear tree around the corner.
Here are close ups of the fruit trees.

 The plum tree to the left of the front steps, has round red plums

 Moonglow pear tree to the right of the front steps, has a few sets of blossoms.

 5 on 1 pear tree right of the Moonglow pear by the handicap ramp, you can see a few blossoms o this one, this will be the first year that we get pears on it.

 This is the Bartlett pear tree at the corner of our house , the southeast side by the east deck.

 Here are some baby plants coming up between out two front paths, iris, hydrangea, hosta,s etc.

Bleeding hearts and hardy geraniums under the pear tree by the steps.

I have a lot of baby siberian iris coming up all over the property, blue, purple, white, yellow, etc.

 These are baby honeysuckles also, I have lots of these that will bloom in a week or so, pink, red and white.

The daffodills are just about finished.

ah, spring !

 My first hint of asparagus, more since and have eaten some.

 Finding morel mushrooms, in the yard out by the pond

 Another morel, kinda hiding..

 So far this year in the last 3 days, 19, here are a few..

 Here is one of our North Star Cherry trees, it is in a guild with rhubarb, comfrey, asparagus, bearded iris, and grapevines over arbor. There is another on the left, see photo below, guilded with asparagus, and gooseberries, chives, and a few other plants

 Plum tree guild in the front yard, is underplanted with perernnial and annual flower and has lilacs to draw in pollinators. There are climbing roses on the right. We also have several other plum trees in other areas of the property.

 Here is a pear tree guild, underplanted with perennials and roses and some other shrubs and plants, there are 2 dwarf pear trees here, one closer to the steps and one nearer to me taking photo.

There are several other pear trees also on the property, one behind me taking photo and two more by the east deck.

dog deterrant

Well some of our neighbors have dogs that have become a problem on the property. Used to have the entire yard fenced in but the posts rotted off and fence came down. We replaced a bunch of it and I also put up some wire fencing, but not enough to deter all the dogs. The neighbors this way have buried elec fencing with dog collars but the dogs ignore them, so as a deterrant I piled some brush along the property line where there is no fence. Wish I could afford and have time and energy to get fence all around the property again, as the dog the other direction actually killed 2 of our cats and our wild duck nest a couple years ago, but hopefully this will be a small deterrant this direction.

Baby peach trees and some hostas for some new spring plants.

Well I finally broke down and bought two more baby peach trees, these are Georgia Belle peaches, freestone white flesh, and they are dwarfs. 

I put them just east of the east deck on either side of the Ayers Pear tree. I did mulch around them but they have established plantings around them that aren't showing up in the photos yet this spring, The top one is on the north end and it has iris, daylily, aegopodium, and other perennials around it. The bottom photo is the one on the south side and it has daylillies and comfrey and aegopodium around it.

This is the area between the landing off the east deck and the woodshed which is the building on the right. There were oriental poppies growing here and daylillies, and so I popped in 4 hostas to brighten it up. The daylillies and poppies will be huge in no time and will take over the area quickly.

Finally got a new fresh coat of paint on the front porch and ramp rails.

you can see that the railing on the deck and ramp needed painting really badly, well that got done over the weekend this past weekend. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday painting railings.

A fresh coat of white paint is very refreshing. However, we did have some animal chip a couple of areas near the bird feeder, so when I finish painting and touching up the east utility rails and gate I'll give that spot a touch up as well. But at least now I feel like I have everything I really needed to have done before the brain surgery in 3 weeks.

Utility area gate and end rail built

 Finally got around to building the gate and the end rails for the area where the utility boxes are on the east deck. I still need to get some paint on both ends but at least they are built. I still have one small railing that I need to finish building, and then I'll get the paint out and finish this all up, and do some touch up paint where I painted but missed a few areas. Right now we are going into a rainy spell so the painting will have to wait.

finished rebuilding the picket fence today.

This is the north end of my picket fence redo. I've been planting everything I can think of along the property line to make a hedgerow, but the picket fence had fallen down in several areas as the posts had rotted off at the ground level. The picket panels were still in fairly good condition so I had removed them and stacked them back near my woods for several years as I had shoulder injuries and stomach surgeries that prevented me from digging out the rotted post ends and putting in  new posts.

I began last week working on the front yard which I posted photos of earlier, so now I've finished doing the back yard. Our neighbors have been planting pines and lilacs on their side of the fence and we have been planting pines, hemlocks, berry bushes, jerusalem artichokes and other plants all along the property line.

So here we have it, the back yard picket fence is now functional . So there is picket fence now all the way from the ditch area by the road back to the woods on our west property line. The woods needs fencing also as the dogs that come up (that cat eater) need to be fenced out of our property. So I'll be trying to put wire fencing north of where the picket fence ends. I also need to repair 2 areas of our front lattice fence where bear went through the fence and left large holes.

That will have to wait a few days as we are now having a rainy spell. It began to rain 5 minutes after I got my mess cleaned up.