GrowGirl

I haven't posted for awhile. The house renovations have been stealing all my extra energy. After six weeks, the novelty of cooking in the basement and sleeping in the study has worn off. On top of that, we have been doing the mowing and gardening on our own because the garden helpers evaporated with the coming of October.

On the precipation front, we had slightly more than an inch of rain over a couple of days in the first few days of October. The lawns have greened up, but when mowing I've come across many dead patches where the grass just didn't survive the weeks and months without rain.

Technically, I would say we are still in a drought. My husband planted 20 ninebark shrubs in one of our naturalized areas last weekend, and he found that the top few inches of soil were moist, but deeper than that the ground was still dry.

There might be some rain next week. My birthday is on Wednesday, the 17th, and the forecast for that day is for rain. If it materializes, it would be the perfect gift!

As for the renovation, the week looks like this: painters, cabinets and countertop finish Monday/Tuesday, electricians mid-week, then plumbers for the kitchen sink on Thursday, and the door knobs, bedroom closet shelves and bars toward the end of the week. The painters have been doing a wonderful job. The new kitchen cabinets are lovely, and two bedrooms have been renovated from floor to ceiling too (one of them was the old kitchen).

I really have nothing to complain about except my stress level. The renovation work has gone very smoothly, thanks to Carlo Barletta, an excellent contractor, and expert kitchen designers and cabinetmakers Woodvalley Kitchens, and interior designer Toby Yull, who helped me with the initial concept, plus paint colors and window coverings, and some hand-holding. (She understands that we can get rather crabby during the process.)

With the reno, our house might just come up to standard of the garden. We have always tended to do things backwards - garden first, then house.http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping


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