postcard from the porch

 

The windowboxes are in place,

and the little plants are beginning to grow.

The simple experimental brackets and shelf are working,

though I may make small changes someday.

Or some year.

It was difficult to envision the proportions on individual pieces until everything was in place, and by the time I had decided on the measurements of the brackets pieces and put them together, made a trip to the lumber mill and fetched home an 8' and a 12' piece of 1x12" roughcut for the shelves, gone to the hardware store to buy the proper screws, installed the brackets, and lifted each of the seven planted boxes onto the shelves...

I was ready to call the job "finished for now."

And they are already making me quite happy!

Some of the nasturtiums are even beginning to flower!

(Here, with window screen Special Effects) 

Piper, too, is absolutely beside herself with delight

about the windowboxes!

Well, she may not really care about the windowboxes,

but Piper always enjoys the porch.

And so do I, especially when it's as hot outside as it is right now.

This afternoon is going to be spent on the porch.

Living in the moment.

There will be knitting.

There will be sketching.

There will be beef-flavored biscuits.

That last one is for Piper,

but the knitting and sketching is all for me.

I hope you are having a peaceful and restorative Sunday.

~~~~~

when the right one comes along

A friend once complained to me that her husband "would rather have no furniture in the house than buy something that isn't exactly what he wants!" She was complaining to the wrong person. If I don't need something immediately, I can wait a long time - often years, sometimes decades - to find "the right one" of the items on my longterm shopping list.

An advantage of this approach: when the right one comes along, there's no dithering or delay - it's a snap decision.

By the way, none of this applies to Piper.
Piper gets whatever she wants.
Pretty much instantaneously.

~~~

I've been cutting lumber by hand - and very badly - for a long time. No matter how careful I am, it is always a bit of a miracle when my angle cuts actually fit.

Even when Expert Assistance is provided.

During the building of the original screenporch in 1997, I had the short-term loan of a table saw and compound miter saw. It took a little while to get comfortable with using them - so loud! - but they soon became invaluable - so accurate! so powerful! When I gratefully returned them to their generous owner, both tools were added to the permanent shopping list. Somewhere between "livestock scale" and "adjustable daybed."

Fast-Forward nineteen years...

SNAP!

The lovely person who sold me this well-cared-for compound miter saw for a very low price (I actually challenged it and offered more) is also considering selling a table saw of similar vintage. I gulped (even at a very reasonable price, it is still, in the coin of my realm, a few truckloads of hay) but then said, "Please let me know if you decide to sell, because I would like to buy it also. Anytime."

Readers, I will keep you posted. But that one would probably be a Wordless Wednesday: just a picture of a table saw and a tall gin and tonic. ;)

~~~

Remember when I painstakingly salvaged all those bits and pieces of lumber after the porch renovation? Some of it has already been put back to work in the goat barn. And now some of it will be returning to the porch, in a new role: simple brackets supporting the windowboxes. Very satisfying!

This lumber shows its history.

Weathering on the exposed sides...

...claw marks from squirrels scrambling up to the roof...

...a carpenter's note from the Great Gable Window Search...

 ...and the occasional nail-hole, as you can see in a few of these newly-cut pieces. So glad I took the time to remove Every Single Nail from this lumber before storing it for reuse. It was ready to go!

Apparently this project requires special screws - I'm learning something new here! - so it won't be finished today. I hope you don't mind. I'm turning the simplest of projects into a very long process, but having fun doing it.

And soon I hope to show you the windowboxes in place.

For now, here's a peek:

I hope your Sunday is full of color and adventure!

~~~~~

tuesday tidbits

During the recent week of rain, the amazing epimedium continued to produce masses of tiny gem-like flowers:

 The flowers are passing, but look at what the leaves are doing!

~~~

In other perennial news, the little wild ginger plant I added last summer was one of the first plants to return this year. It's leaves looked exceptionally lush against a palette of Forest Floor:

Charming, isn't it? 

One day I made a little line drawing:

~~~

Several readers have asked about Project Windowbox.

Thanks for asking! Here's an update.

The design decisions were easy, thanks to all the good advice I received here. I am very grateful! This is the kind of thing that can hang fire for years while I hem and haw. The choices made:

1) sturdy white plastic boxes

2) continuous wooden supports built across the long walls

After a long and fruitless online search, I found boxes locally - a nice surprise. I also ordered gallons of a cedar-oil-based wood preservative, because the exterior walls of the porch needed to be protected before installing the boxes.

No big deal.

My occasional hired helper and I could work together and get it done, lickety-split.

On the right:
product applied but not yet absorbed.

Then...for nearly three weeks my occasional hired helper and I experienced a baffling series of miscommunications. By the time it was straightened out, the rainy season (it really has felt like an actual season, with soup and tea and a barn coat that never quite dried out before I had to put it on again) had begun.

So, for the past two weeks we've been working as often as weather and schedules permit. Working on several now-overdue tasks.
Working hard.

Current status: most of the porch now has two coats. The gable peak has one. A third overall coat may be needed; we'll see. Either way, fingers crossed the painting will be finished by next week. We finally had a sunny day yesterday, and another today, but my helper has not been available...so, no progress yet this week. Yes, I could crawl up that ladder and do the gable myself, but moving and setting the higher ladder is hard for me to do. So I'll wait.

Meanwhile, one more piece fell into place on Saturday, when I found a source for the potting soil recommended to me by a blogger who gardens like I can only dream of gardening. I've never been so excited about the opportunity to buy dirt. I'm really pushing the boat out on this project! 

Soon...I'll keep you posted!

~~~

P.S.

I'm sure LeShodu would like to thank you for your kind birthday greetings, and especially the suggestion of "special carrots."

"'Special' is a unit of measurement, right?
Is it equivalent to a pound?
Or is it one carrot for each of my 12 years?"

~~~~~

thanks so much

A huge "Thank You!" to everyone who commented or sent an email about the windowbox project! I feel so lucky to have readers who take the time to ponder these things, and then write about their experiences and their ideas for what would or wouldn't work well here. Thank you!!

It's extremely helpful hearing about things like fiberglass boxes that last for decades - who knew? - and using plastic liners inside wooden boxes - which never even crossed my mind! - and the need for daily watering because even in plastic planters the soil may dry out more quickly than I expect and the heat of the sun on the boxes may damage the plants' roots. This last in particular may seem obvious to most of you - except KB, who has a similar closed-canopy situation at her woodsy home as I do here - but having to watch out for the effects of too much sun on the plants will be quite a new experience for me!

I'm still looking at pictures and measuring and deciding, so if anyone feels the urge to add to the comments, please do! With so many excellent ideas and options, I really don't think there can be anything but a satisfying outcome. The project should be underway next week; I'm trying to coordinate with my hired helper to be here one day for other tasks, as that way there'd be an extra hand within hailing distance for windowbox assistance if needed.

~~~

And as I've continued to ponder plants and planters,

there's still a lot of this going on every day:

Turns out you can do quite a lot of garden planning

while combing a goat or two.

We've reached the time of year when things start happening quickly...one day, the slightest tint of green amidst the high grey branches of the maples, and the next morning the air is absolutely full of birdsong. I saw the first flycatcher in the South Paddock yesterday; hopefully they will build a nest under the workshop eaves again and I will see them swooping to and fro when I am filling the water buckets. Today I saw nine goldfinches at the feeder - a record! Several are in the process of trading their serious Winter outfits for a new Spring wardrobe.

We know what that feels like, don't we, Azalea?

"I'm about halfway done with shedding my cashmere!
It's tremendously hard work, but I don't complain.
Just having a bite of hay to keep my strength up."

In fact, it's taking a chance, but this weekend I'm going to shed my own Winter coat. I'll take my ancient calf-length down-filled barn coat off the peg by the back door, mend this year's rips, wash it, dry it in the fresh air, and put it carefully away for the season.

~~~

Piper and I have been going for our usual short walk/wander most days when it isn't actually raining. Everything is right on the brink of massive change; you can feel it in the air and see it in tiny signs everywhere you look. On clear days, it would be hard to take a bad photograph.

Especially when you have the help of a dog like Piper, who has recently begun to insist on being self-walking.

She actually carried that retractable lead all the way out of the woods, walking about 20 feet in front of me the whole time. I think she's finally come up with a solution for a human who stops to take photographs too often. "Fine. I'll walk myself."

You go, Ms. Independence.

:) 

~~~~~

opinions invited

Your input is requested on my next project.

As you may recall, there are windows on the west and south walls of the porch. Three windows on the west wall; four on the south. Even as I was measuring for these windows, I was planning to put up windowboxes beneath them. Because they will get SUN!

Please pardon the parallax in this distorted snap - it's the best I could find at the minute. If it wasn't dark right now, I'd step outside and get a better picture.

Last Spring, the windowboxes had to be postponed. This Spring, I am very determined to Make It Happen. And now is the time, before the gardens can be worked. It's going to take time and effort and trips to buy materials and...well, as slow as I am, I had better get cracking.

Will you please help with the planning?

All along I've been picturing individual white-painted wooden boxes filled with soil, each box supported by brackets attached directly to the walls. Sweet peas growing up! Nasturtiums dangling down! Herbs in the middle! Soooo pretty!

But now that it's time to get to work, I'm - of course - thinking of other options. For example, I've been told plastic is by far the best material for gardening containers because it maintains more moisture for the plants. The non-rotting feature of plastic could be pretty useful too, considering all the water that goes into windowboxes.

Expense? Well, no matter what plastic boxes would cost, it would probably have to be cheaper than building wooden boxes and then painting them, probably with multiple coats of...I don't know, some kind of enamel, or marine paint? I haven't researched the paint yet.

(Sidenote: I have a terrible record as far as painting wood goes. Every time something is built of wood here (by me or by real carpenters) I think, "This time I will paint it. Some cheerful color. It will be so pretty!" And every single time, when the item is built, I look at it and think, "Wood is so beautiful." And I don't want to paint it. So I don't. I honestly cannot remember the last time I applied paint to unfinished wood.)

So, the first question is, the material for the boxes:
Wood?
Plastic?
Other?

Next, do I really want seven individual boxes on wooden brackets attached to the house? There are good alternatives. For example, I could build a shelf or slatted rack the length of each wall below the windows, and put the boxes - or even pots - on the shelves. Flexible for future arrangements.
Or, I could build a tall, freestanding bench in front of each wall, and use the benches to hold the boxes. The only advantage I can think of, is that this option puts space between boxes and walls, which might prevent staining of the porch walls from rainwater splashing or draining from the boxes. The most difficult aspect would be leveling the benches at the start (leveling a lawn chair takes effort here), and annual adjustment after frost heaves.

So, the second question is the overall design:
Seven traditional boxes on wall brackets?
Two long shelves on wall brackets, holding boxes?
Two long freestanding benches, ditto?
Other?

Please feel free to weigh in on these questions! Most if not all of you have much more experience than I do with successfully growing plants. And I'll bet many if not most of you grow plants in windowboxes or planters or containers of some kind, and I'll bet they look fabulous. Please share your wisdom and ideas! Thanks!

Sambucus would like to see windowboxes on the barns.
"Just about chin-height, please!"

~~~~~