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!