Front Sidewalks a Dying Detail.

I kinda miss the days when one would REALLY use the front sidewalk.



A stroll to town to pick up a spool of thread.



A walk to the neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar.




Or to step out and wave at the newest motor carriage passing by....



While most of the front sidewalks along our street are slowly disappearing.
Chris has been trying to save ours.



Yes, there are a couple cracks. At 90, who doesn't have a few crevices?

Between the Down Pours........

I spied this little guy hanging out on a Coleus leaf.

A tiny fellow. His body is smaller than a Begonia flower.

Then he spied me.

I think he thinks the lens of my camera is an eye. Which it is. Sorta, Kinda.

It just is not an eye of something that is gonna eat him for dinner, or lunch, or even breakfast.

But it did scare the poop out of him, anyway.

Look at the expression on his face. ( I wish the shot were a little better in focus. I laughed once I down loaded the pics and realized what was going on.)

Then he ran to the Margarita Sweet Potato Vine. He fit in well. The Sweet potato vine has gone crazy at the front of our house.

I thought I would include a shot from February of his mom or dad sunning on the deck.

And Finally....... the crazy sweet potato vine at the front of the house. (I am ready to give it a trim. )

It has gone wild. (I only planted 3 of them.)

Can't help myself...

Maybe, I should re-name the blog...
Confessions of a Flower-A-Holic.

Beauty or Beast?

By now, I know you have figured out my not so little secret......

I am a flower-a-holic.

When I saw a small morning glory vine creeping up near the front steps, I decided to leave it, and let it do it's thing.

It grew and grew and twisted and turned up the metal railing.

And after months of waiting...finally...it is doing it's thing.

This one is a bit paler than I had wished for, but it still is a beauty.

Many people do not like morning glory and think of it as a pesky vine.

Do you think of Morning glory as a beauty or a beast?

Fluttering....

He was found fluttering around the front flower bed.



Gathering the sweet nectar. Full of carbs.

It takes a lot of carbs for all that fluttering.



They saw him too...

Still working in the yard.

The bonfire is still burning in the far part of the back yard.
Chris keeps finding tree limbs to burn. I don't think the PO ever brought any of the limbs to the curb. Just placed them in a pile and the kudzu grew over them.

I cleaned up some leaf debris from the front yard. (Yes it is April, end of April, and we still had leaf debris in the front yard.) I used the leaves as mulch in the vege garden.

I am almost finished with the flower bed in the front to the left side of the sidewalk. Including digging up those stepping stones. The stones seem to be granite, not slate, as I had thought. I moved them and re-set them. One still wobbles. ( I had Weeble Wobbles, once.)

Oh, and last weekend we planted 7 small azalea plants in the front yard. I could not find the Stewartsonian color, but did find a orangy red. Not as vibrant as the other, but the plants were under $3 each. Then our neighbors planted some more azaleas, and sellected plants in the same color family. This should provide a nice show of color at the property line in a couple of years. On our side I made sure that I planted the plants about 3-4 feet off the property line, so when the plants grow they won't grow into their side. They planted right on the property line. I just don't quite understand that. Oh well.... I guess the same reason they always place their yard debris on our side, not theirs.

While working in the front yard, I have seen 3 wrecks. Two right in front of our house. I guess folks are trying to figure out where we are doing next. This town tends to be quite nosey. Pay attention to the car infront of you people of Townsville!

Til next time......

Planting Annuals & the F- word.

The area directly in front of the house was over grown with ivy. When we moved in, we clean it out a bit removing beer bottles, chip bags and candy bar wrappers.

You know---English Ivy loves Doritos, Snickers, and Bud. Right?

After several "treatments" the ivy is finally gone, leaving a 6" deep layer of dead vines. I used the metal rake to remove the vines and cleaned out the area down to the dirt or soil. (It's dirt to me. )

I found several things.

A horse shoe. --Hey that's Lucky-Right?
A small hook, a battery, a marble, a hose thingy, 1/2 a plastic Easter egg, a baseball pendant, and a hanging basket holder. Woo Hooo!!!

I cleaned up the edge and began to add some of the bricks, that scattered are all over the yard in random places. Then I planted a few annuals.

I need to fill in with some more plants. However, for next week the weather girl is talking about the F- word... (No, not that F-word.)

F....F....Fro...Frost.

So, I decided to stop there for now and spread out some pine straw. The straw is deep enough I can cover up the plants next week with it and use a painter's tarp over it all. I should be able to keep everybody warm and alive.



I still need to gather up some additional bricks and finish cleaning up the edge but as the neighbor said yesterday afternoon, "It looks so much better."

Those scraggly bushes in the back are camellias. From the size of the roots, they look to be original. They are recovering from ivy suffocation, but I think they are going to make it.


*Saturday morning update*

This morning the weather girl is saying the other "F-word".... F....Fr...Freeze..... in the 20's.
Burr... I know some of you are getting snow, which really stinks in April, but this is Georgia people.

I just washed all our washable coats and have them ready to put away for the summer.

I had a wild hair.....

And painted the Door Bright Yellow...

Our front door has always been ugly. I walked through the nasty door one too many times, so I painted it. I dream of one of these doors, even a salvaged craftsman door would do.

Since a new front door is not priority, and I loved the yellow door I saw on a walk and the one from the flicker file........

Yellow it is... just the inexpensive can of "canned" yellow. Rust-oleum 1945 Sun Yellow.

At one time the crosses on the door were painted white and the panels were a painted green. It was bad. So over a year ago I had white primer on a roller and rolled over the green, still bad, and that is how it was until this week.

Yes this is only a quick fix, (under $4) until we finalize the exterior colors of the house. So I didn't strip or even scrap off all the PO's painted over mess. Why people paint over fuzz, hair, and other nasty stuff is such a mystery to me.

In other news.......

Our neighbor has a pretty pink azalea that hangs over our alley. Lucky us!

This Week in Pictures

The week started out warm and sunny. The blooms from a tree hidden in the vines were looking quite pretty.

I worked on the chair found in the basement. I painted it Paprika Red. An orangey red.

A war wound from the battle of trying to move this rail from the old deck in the back yard. When Chris took down the old deck months ago, it almost got him in the head. This time it did, get me in the leg. So far, the rail is winning, because it is still on the ground. I did beat it good with the sledge hammer to knock off the decorative parts.

Puppy watched from above in the sun.

Then it turned cold, high of 34. Flowers died. And we went inside.

I took this picture from out the window.

It is pretty again today. Maybe I will be able to clear coat the chair.

All New H20 lines...

Yes it is complete, I was out of town visiting my grandmother yesterday or

I would have made progress shots. Not as big of mess I thought it would be.
In ThirteenEleven's pecan trees this morning.

I wish my camera would have zoomed a bit more.

Lovely Yellow Flags.........

YIPPEE !!!!!!!! The Gas Line is Marked...............but guess what........it is raining........just in time to dig up the front yard. It hasn't rained since the little rain on Nov.25th....thank goodness it is raining... but we are soooo lucky it is raining now... yeah? right?........but we can't complain about the rain.....

Everything but the kitchen sink.

After weeks of preparation and gathering of all our long collected treasures.....(junk). Our Yard Sale was held on Saturday. Working late into the night , we drug out many of the belongings that came with the house from the basement to the front yard. Rising early in the morning, we drug out the boxes of clothing, glassware, old electronics, rugs, lamps, dishes, art, picture frames, and all the things that we were going to get around to fixing, repairing, or refinishing.

Somewhere close to 6:00 a.m. there was a lady plundering through our junk with a flashlight. I was trying to pour my coffee. I knew I was going to need all the caffeine I could get.

We were able to get out the bulk of our stuff before daylight and set out the signs at about 7:00. ( cool signs that I creatively painted may I add) With in 15 minutes cars were everywhere. People were flocking to our sale. After all we did have enough stuff with our belongings, the houses belongings, and the stuff Marlene donated to our sale to house a small thrift shop. The waves of people continued all morning long. At 12:30 we were about to close up and then at least 20 more people arrived. We finally closed down at about 1:20, packed up the few remaining items to donate, and took a rest.

I was amazed with what all we sold. Many things that I didn't think would sell, sold fast. Some things that I thought would go, didn't. However, I could have sold 20 sets of patio furniture, and 40 handbags.

We sold a lot of clothing, and I thought I had a creative way to display the hanging clothes. We have 2 tall yellow ladders that I placed step side beside step side and strap tied some old gas conduit that we pulled out from the basement on the steps and created a long sturdy hanging area for the clothes. I so wish I had a pic of this and the traffic backup the yard sale created. But I was too busy answering customers questions and making change to find a camera.

Thanks go out to Marlene for here yard sale donations, and Mom and Joe for helping out with the hauling and helping with the customers.

The sale was a success and we hopefully raised money for a down payment on counter tops so we can have a working kitchen sink. (By the way, The old kitchen sink didn't sale and I only had $5 on it and it was stainless) We sold almost everything but the sinks. But just as soon as we placed them on the side of the road later yesterday afternoon in less than an hour they were gone, along with my hand painted yard sale signs. So I will keep a look out with who will use my signs next.

Helping out and just visiting...........