Unplanned Hiatus

Things have been quiet around here, my apologies for the lack of updates. It's different living in somebody else's house, a. you can't just run around doing whatever projects you want and b. it's harder to justify spending money on things that won't come with us when we leave. 

That said, I can't stop working in the yard, that would just be crazy. The summer we moved in we poured a little front porch. And never used it. So this winter we talked the landlord (my dad) into having a little arbor built over it.

                                     

Not too imposing after everything froze in our crazy cold winter, I know. We normally don't get lows in the 20's for a week straight, so I was mainly concerned with keeping the citrus trees alive. But everything recovered and I also finally admitted to myself that the backyard will never get enough sun for my vegetables...

                                                   

So we got a little veggie bed action going too. You can also see the new little fence that my dad and I put in, it made life a little less miserable while the neighbors were gutting their house and construction debris was everywhere. It's not too imposing yet, this was my first shot at bush beans on the right and so far I think pole beans are a way better use of space. These just aren't very productive. And unfortunately, I planted two varieties and one is way tastier that the other, but I don't know which one was which. Sad trombone.

                             

So the upshot is, much more time being spent on the porch now. Even Matt will take his coffee out there in the a.m. sometimes now. Everything is growing in nicely and it's secluded from the street now so you can sit there and watch people walk by and nobody even notices we're there. The pile of trees in the street in that picture is another story, we had to spend some cash on tree trimming/removal in the backyard, it was a jungle back there! You can see the remains all piled in the street, and our backyard can see the sun again! Still not enough to grow tomatoes though.

I have ideas for other things to blog about, fingers crossed I can get back on the horse and stay on! Is anybody else still out there?