"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."
Robert Louis Stevenson




Friday, October 17, 2014

Red-Shouldered Hawk, Painting Project, and Brick Beds for the Herb Garden!



I was on my way to my community garden plot this morning when I spotted this beauty on the pole just down the road from our house.  He saw my camera lens and took off, but not before I got a couple clicks of the camera. I'm not sure if this is a Red-Shouldered Hawk or not.   Any guesses?

Where Would You Like to Go Today?


Lots of projects on my To Do List!  I started painting the master bedroom, which we actually use as a guest bedroom, on Monday.  With the darker color, it took three coats of paint to cover and three days to complete.


This is the old color, which I loved for 10 years!  The new shade is Behr paint, a color called Farmhouse White, the same color I painted my kitchen.   It came out more of a light celery color, which is not really showing up in the photo below.  I had hoped it would have more of a yellow undertone so that I could add some pale blues to the bedding, but it looks nice.  Now I will need to find some fabric to make new drapes,  like I need another project right now.


Tomorrow we plant our community garden plot with our winter vegetables.  I can't wait to have beets, chard, lettuces and other goodies for the salad bowl.

Once the garden is planted then I will move on to the herb garden project.  For years I have wanted to put in brick raised beds.  I found these bricks for sell on Craigslist in August.  The woman I bought these from said that her father worked at a local San Diego manufacturing site in the 60's, and at one time acquired a huge amount of their glazed bricks, I bought 400 of them; I hope it is enough for the raised beds. 



I have a couple of bricks that are signed and dated and I hope to find a special place for those in the wall.  This one is signed LR and dated 11-3-67.  The corner is loose but I think I can "glue" it back in with some of the mortar.  Also, a lot of the bricks are what are called Clinker or Klinker bricks, which is the result of wet bricks placed too close to the fire.  A mason I once hired to build a retaining wall for us told me about Clinker bricks.  Our chimney is brick and he pointed these out to me one day.  I asked if that was a good thing and he said "oh yes my dear, those are very desirable to architects" so now I know about  Clinker Bricks.


Thanks to a very kind friend, I now have instructions on how to build the beds!  The space below is my herb garden, the photo is from 2010 and the plants are much larger now.  I will dig them out and put in pots until I am ready to replant them in the new beds.  I want to make 4 separate beds with walking space in-between.  I think I will use the Arizona Moss Flagstone for the pathways around the beds.  Now should I set those in with sand or should I use concrete?  I need to give this more thought..and call my friend.

This is going to be a big project for me! I hope it doesn't end up looking like Lucy and Ethel's Bar B Que!





4 comments:

  1. What a wonderful project and you have full-sized plants to populate it!

    Bricks are one of my favorite materials. I treasure every old brick here for the past 75+ years, parts of chimneys and syrup mills. A bulldozer turned up a new cache last year and I treasure every terra cotta bit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jean, thank you for stopping by. I wish I had a place like yours where I could find old bricks. I love them too and can't wait to get my project going. I plan on taking out the plants today, so we begin!

      Delete
  2. Paint color is so odd. I struggled to get the correct shade when I painted earlier this year. We had to cover about that same green in an old house. We'd put a coat on and ask each other "Do you still green?" Your herb garden shounds so ambitoius, but it will be really pretty when you get it done. And, Carla, I couldn't bear a winter garden!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ann, believe me if I could grow all of these plants in the summer I would, but with the heat, drought and low rainfall, we must grow them in the winter months. The good thing about this is the bug population is less in the cooler months!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking time to visit my blog, I love hearing from you, stay as long as you like, Carla