Posted by Patrick on May 29th, 2007
This weekend we finally finished planting trees in our back yard. You may recall that in March my folks stopped by and left us with some high quality pine trees. Over the past… several… weekends we dug and dug and hauled the earth, put trees in the ground, and put a stone border down and mulched the whole thing.
Seventeen trees. Seventeen. Seventeen holes in what has to be the thickest, reddest, heaviest dirt we’ve ever seen. We used both machine and pick ax to try and work through it and have the blisters to prove it.
There were also a lot of rocks in the ground. We filled several bucketfulls. We finally put them on our back porch while we think of something to do with them, or a place to dump them.
The end results were well worth it. We have a whole row of trees in our back yard. In fact, the whole row stretches so far that I couldn’t fit it in a single camera shot and/or we don’t have a wide angle lens. I did manage a poor photoshopping of two images so you can sort of see how it came out.
Posted in Homeownership |
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Posted by Patrick on April 30th, 2007
A list of things that you can fit in your 2001 Toyota Celica, based on experience and recent yard-improvement related stress-tests.
1. Six 3-foot pine trees, three bags of soil conditioner, passenger
2. Eight bags of mulch, a shovel, hose
3. Wheelbarrow (hatch slightly open)
4. 32-inch television, new in box
5. One papsan round chair (hatch slightly open)
6. Camping equipment for two people for three days
7. Air-conditioner (new in box)
8. Tons of stuff for our move to the south. Literally every available space inside the car was filled. Conversations like You don’t need to shift into fifth gear, do you? and How hot does it get in the empty space under the hood? took place.
9. Did I mention the we fit our kitchen table in during #8? Oh yeah, we got that in there,too
10. Anyone with legs in the back seat for more then a mile.
Posted in Automotive, Homeownership |
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Posted by Patrick on April 22nd, 2007
This is what Kate and I did today, amongst many other things. We are both tired and sore, but happy to have this much done. Only like 10 more trees to go.
Posted in Homeownership |
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Posted by Patrick on April 13th, 2007
Working for a living
Kate’s been working at 5am every day this week. That is early. I’m glad she has this weekend off.
Dual Monitors
If you’re using a desktop for anything other then surfin the web or emailing, there simply isn’t anything sweeter then a second screen connected to the computer. You got stuff on one screen, stuff on the other, they don’t get confused, it’s very exciting. More at Wikipedia
I find it to be especially rad when using programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash. You’ve got your project on one screen, and all the tools on the other. I guess it’s compartmentalization, because I think I’d rather have two distinct screens then one huge screen.
The Mantis Tiller
Our NC friends Matt and Kat are letting us borrow their Mantis Tiller (amoungst other yardy things). We’re using it to prep our yard for tree planting. This machine is a beast with handles. It is motorized yard violence. It rips through the dirt clay down here without mercy.
Kate and I planted 2 tree’s today, only 11 or so more to go! Photos coming soon, we’re very proud of our yard upgrade.
300
Speaking of Matt and Kat, I went with them to see the movie 300 last weekend. 300 is the Mantis tiller of movies! There was a great deal of Spartan-on-Persian fighting. I thought it was good stylistically, but not quite living up to other one large group of people fights a smaller group movies like Braveheart.
Posted in Friends, Homeownership, Nerdery |
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Posted by Katherine on April 2nd, 2007
I took some photos of our new plants today.
Here is a rose that Pat’s parents bought us at DeWayne’s. I am going to plant it in the backyard somewhere, but I haven’t decided where yet. They also got us a bunch of Blue Point Juniper trees. There is some major gardening ahead of us as we try to get those in the ground. 
Here is front-yard portion of the patio set that they bought us. It came with a table, four chairs, and an umbrella for the backyard and these two chairs and the little table for the front. Very nice.
The new hydrangeas close up. Apparently they will very likely turn blue because of our soil.
And here are the flowers that I planted earlier, by the mailbox.
I think I will eventually have to move things around. It makes me very nervous to move plants. I guess I should try to find a good landscaping book…
Posted in Homeownership |
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There were also a lot of rocks in the ground. We filled several bucketfulls. We finally put them on our back porch while we think of something to do with them, or a place to dump them. 
