Desk Air Plants

After visiting a friend's lovely house, Mr. Forty-two Roads came home raving about her use of glass terraria and suspended greenery. Ever since then, he's been really into the idea of replicating this somewhere in our house. But... our house has two rather rambunctious children, whose main response to dangling glass orbs would be to smash into them while running around. The out of the way solution? Our bedroom office nook, which now features this lovely hanging tableau:



These plants are two different kinds of Tillandsia, which just need a daily spritz of water to thrive. They are hanging from curtain rod hooks, which seem perfectly designed to hold a suspended weight.



I did research knots to find a particularly sturdy one, ending up tying twine into double figure 8 knots on both ends. This knot is strong and useful for not putting undue strain on a rope while anchoring it.

Jake-a-saurus Rex Turns 5!

Well, I don't know how you spent your weekend, but around here we dinosaured ourselves out celebrating Jake's birthday! Everyone had a totally dinoriffic time, and we as always out-dinoed ourselves!



First up? Some amazing skeleton shadows that Misha just free-handed (of course) on black poster board. I love that this was both thematic decor and also a potential rainy-weather activity - scared-face photo op. Lara demonstrates:



Misha then carved this watermelon-saur which we eventually surrounded with delicious blood-red "meat" chunks. Can you believe the tongue in that thing's head? Bonkers!



Luckily, the weather cooperated and we had a glorious day in which to pursue all of our paleontological plans. Following the internet's advice like I always do, I made fossil dig things out of plaster of paris and dirt. Pro tip: if you ignore the ratios that the plaster box tells you to use for mixing with water, and just mix however in small batches that you then just pour over each other, you will end up with multi-colored striations! Just like real rocks! Even more pro-tip: only do this if you don't mind cleaning up a ton of not-entirely-properly-set-plaster.



To keep the kids somewhat clean and also somewhat protected, I whipped up some paleontological aprons and loaded them up with small rock hammers (read: tack hammers), protective goggles, brushes, and magnifying lenses. Whatever they dug up could also go into the pockets. The aprons and finds would also serve as the party favors, avoiding the "bag of plastic crap" dilemma. Did the kids stay clean, you ask? Well, let me counter with another question: what do you consider "clean"?



Inside the fossil blocks were dinosaur skeletons, geodes that could be smashed apart, and polished semi-precious stones. Hammering them apart was the best part of the fossil hunt:



Followed closely by brushing them off:



Followed by some serious appraisal and classification decisions. (Also, check out our thematically appropriate plants - ferns! We have them all over the back yard much like the dinosaurs did back in the day.)



I think you can see from these pictures that the plaster gradually covered our entire back yard. And everyone's shoes. And then the interior of our house. Pro tip: mixing plaster with dirt before adding water makes for easy cleanup later! Vacuum your house and hose down your patio.



We also had another kind of dig in the back of our yard. After pulling up a bunch of the bricks (necessary because I will eventually level and re-brick that whole thing), we realized that the resulting dirt pit was the perfect place to bury some more dinosaur figurines.



Check out Jake's pile of tiny found dinos:



And of course, there would be no party without a dinosaur-shaped pinata. Nothing was funnier than watching all the kids whack this thing with a bat trying to crack it open. I think at some point, Lara figured out its weak spot and her very directed hitting strategy was the winner. Everyone else just went for the head though, which was probably more psychologically satisfying.



Happy Birthday, Jake! I cannot believe you are already 5! I also cannot believe you are only 5!

Following the Brick Road

So: true confessions time. Sometimes, I start huge random projects that really don't - on the face of it - need to be happening. (Psychoanalyze at will.) Case in point - there was nothing particularly horrible about the way the bricks were laid out in our back yard. Sure, they were in an awkwardly spaced basketweave pattern with almost an inch of dirt around each brick. And yes, that dirt would find its way up and out constantly, but would stubbornly refuse to grow moss on it.



But still, did I really need to pull up all the bricks and start over? Probably not. And yet, that is pretty much exactly what I did. Using all the awesomely patinaed bricks that were already there, plus an extra 60 or so free from Craigslist (because guess what? When you eliminate all the dirt space, you need extra bricks!), I went to town.

Here's a shot of the naturally occurring before and after effect of redoing everything row by row:



I started in March, and yesterday I finally finished. Phew! That is some ridiculously hard garden labor. But look how pretty and clean-looking it is now!





The original plan was to also uproot all the bricks in the way back area of the garden and make that a grass lawn... but that will have to wait until fall apparently, according to my quick research of when you're supposed to plant grass seeds. Any tips on making that process go smoothly?

It Came From the Basement...

... but luckily, it was just a tree stump turned planter for the back yard!

I've become kind of obsessed with these log-based side tables that have been floating around the internet. So I found someone on Craiglist who was giving away their cut down tree, and swooped in to pick up two pieces, each about a foot in diameter and two feet long.

For a couple of months, they sat drying out in our basement, looking pretty much like what you'd expect the chopped up sections of a tree trunk to look like:



I didn't spend too much time identifying the species of tree because, honestly, I have no idea how to do that in the absence of leaves (any takers?). Then I saw that one of the pieces had rotted out on the inside somewhat, so it seemed like having that in our living space wasn't the greatest idea. But outside? Why not!

I chipped off the bark with a hammer and chisel (after the drying time it proved super easy), and then chipped out the rotted part with various improvised implements:



A little potted soil and a relocated plant later, we ended up with a little planter/side table next to the iron bench:



I'm quite happy with it. My only question is whether the plant will survive inside the tree trunk - could the tree rot be dangerous to the plant somehow? I guess we'll have our answer in a few weeks. Meanwhile, the second piece is still undergoing processing, and will be revealed shortly!

Rock Breakin'

You guys, I love Craigslist. Where else would you find a giant pile of the exact bricks we need for the back yard totally free and only fifteen minutes away? Awesome. The only catch was that they had been cemented into place and so had the cement still caked onto them. No problem, I thought - I've got a masonry chisel, so I should be all set, right? Well, yes, but definitely with some back pain for my troubles. My progress so far:



The area we want to fill in is basically that whole section with the hostas that are growing outside the demarcated flower bed (we're just going to dig them up and move them over a couple of feet). The ultimate hope is that by doing all of this we will make enough space to get an inflatable pool again this summer!

We've been working in the back yard

Well, maybe not all the live-long day, but certainly enough that I now realize exactly why serious gardeners have those knee cushions. The main section we've been dealing with is a huge row of... um... a long dark grass-like plant... that we transplanted to the small flower bed in the front of our house. It was always odd in the back yard, and now it's prettying up an area that used to house three dead bushes. Win-win. However, that meant that we needed to brick in the now empty spot where those grass things used to be, which was a half-fun half-backbreaking project. Fortunately I had a couple of dedicated helpers:



We also decided to add some ground cover to that spot, picking Irish Moss after an extensive research into which type of plant we would have to maintain the least. Here is how it looks now (pretty much all the bricks in this picture are new):



Meanwhile, on other other side of the garden, greater access to the sun has meant a riot of life. Watching all these things emerge from the ground in the last two weeks has been amazing. Well done, whoever created this flower bed!



Here are some flower closeups. Bonus points to anyone who can identify anything in these pictures. I only know the hostas.