A light dusting...

Today we got a light dusting of snow hardly enough to mention. I noticed that the leaves on the maple tree are starting to bud and the plum tree in the front yard is beginning to get a few pink blossoms.

What garden?

Another Spring is on the horizon and the yard has seen very little progress since 2002. We've been concentrating our efforts on the house for the past few years and as anyone can tell you it's very expensive. But I have made myself a promise that this year I will do something, even if it's something small. As you can see the backyard is nothing to talk about right now. We purchased the porch swing and the picnic set at the same time, but they both suffered casualties this year. I was unprepared for the freak snow storms that hit us and I didn't have time to take the cushions, umbrealla, and awning in. As a result the snow collapsed the umbella and the wind caused a large branch from the pine tree to fall onto the swing awning, and it riped a huge hole in it. I hope to replace them some day. You can also see that river rock eyesore that was the heating source for the Jacuzzi tub that used to be on the deck. The way it worked was you built a fire inside it on top of the pipes, and that would heat the water.

I planted four Blue Nikko Hydrangea bushes in the planter area where the swing is, one near the rock firebox, and one over by the stairs near the hose holder. The one by the hose isn't doing so well, and neither is the one that gets sun all day; it's on the other side of the pine tree, but the two that are in the shade by that rock thing are thriving.

Heuchera micrantha 'Palace Purple' also called fairy bells, are planted near the swing and around the pine tree. They seem to have survived several seasons. I planted them back in 2004. It doesn't spread though like the Dead Nettle does. It's a very pretty, and delicate plant that gets tiny pink bells on the tips of its stems.

Spotted Dead Nettle "White Nancy". I started the Dead Nettle in the area across from the swing. That used to be where the concrete mess from the spa was, and to make the best of it I made a planting area all around the thing, but when we had the concrete broken out, and hauled off they buried the plants under the dirt they were shoveling, and I don't know if they will come back. I transplanted some of it over by the swing area, and it seemes to be thriving there.

Since the last time I took photos in 2002 we had a chain link fence installed, and made a dog run for the puppies that way I can still landscape the backyard, and they can have a place to romp, and take care of business. These photos were taken around noon as you can see we don't get much sun on this side of the yard, so I have to be careful what I plant.

This is where we store the firewood. We started stacking a cord of wood this morning. We usually burn through a cord every six weeks sometimes more depending on how cold it is outside. There is enough room there to stack almost three cords of wood.That is another silver maple in the forefront of the picture. I will might cut that down this year there's enough shade back there. I need some sun.
This is the other side yard, and right now our patio furniture is temporarily set up there. I'd like to move it to another part of the yard because it's not very private there, and the neighbors can see and hear everything we do. As you can see there are a ton of pine needles from the last windstorm. It will probably take about 10 bags to rake up the backyard. The path to the right of the set is an elevated path that leads to the side gate and up to the stone steps. Like most things on this property it was started by a previous owner, and never completed. I had tried planting something between the pic-nic set and the path, but it didn't take.This is the view directly across from the patio set, and it gets some afternoon sun. I have planted some dwarf hydrangea bushes there, but only the one in the shade seems to be thriving. I have plans to make that rock wall more permanent or to use the same kind of bricks that I used to make the steps. That area used to be under the stairs to the deck, and was filled with all kinds of debris. Whoever built the deck just threw all the rocks there willy nilly. I've haven't gotten around to do anything with it yet.This is the other shed we had built, and as you can see we have some junk piled up near it. The stuff on the left side is all of my garden gnomes, and stuff that I put out every year in the spring. Under the cypress tree on the left wild blackberry bushes keep popping up. I'd like to train them against the fence, but they are too far away from it. Anybody have any info on how to move one?This is the stone walkway, and retaining wall that leads up to the front of the house. I'd like to continue this into the backyard. It's a mess right now because it's futile to clean up the yard until after the rainy/snow season ends. As soon as the daffodils come up then I know it's safe to clean up the yard. Removing all the pine needles now isn't a smart idea either because they work like mulch, and keep the plants protected. Sometimes I let the planters go for a year because the needles make really rich soil as they decompose.

On the left is the planter filled with vinca major, and to the right is the area where the two Adirondak chairs were in previous pictures. I have planted a hedge of Indian Hawthorne there. It seems to be doing well, and even had some flowers on it last year. They get plenty of water because of the run off from the roof, and they are in the sun most of the morning and afternoon. I planted a row up by the picket fence, but I don't think they'll survive the snow plow this year. I've planted some vinca up by the street as well, and thought I could put some bulbs in there. I like tulips and peonies. I think a row of peonies should do well along the picket fence. If the vinca fills in, and takes off the flowers should accent one another. I'm trying to work with what survives up here, and evidently peonies are hardy in cold weather.
The Black Locust bush, silver maple, and the hydrangea have grown. In fact I need to trim all the suckers off of the maple. It's jsut so tempting to let them fill in, and hide the neighbors' house. In the fall our yard looks very much like this. We don't get the reds here that they have on the east coast because the trees that turn that color are not native to California or we don't get the proper light, and temperature to make our trees turn that color. Ever wonder why leaves change color? Someday I'm going to make it to New England to watch the leaves turn color. The tree's have almost blocked out the view of the neighbors house, which is this hideous color. Yuck! In the summer they also provide privacy, and a nice view from my kitchen window

This is the view of the dog run from the front yard. In the summer there is a vine with green, heart-shaped leaves that uses the fence like a trellis, and covers the entire thing. I don't know what it is, but it must be some kind of weed because it pops up all over the yard.

This is the view of the back of our house. I had a wreath over the door, but I had to take it down to have the house painted, and I never put it back up. I'm trying to find a low shrub that will cover the concrete foundation. I was hoping that the hydrangeas would take off, but so far I haven't had any luck with the one I planted just left of the door. If I could get one to grow then I would plant one on either side. If they don't work maybe the Indian Hawthorne will. That area doesn't get much sun.
This is the view from the back steps of our house. In the summer this field fills up with beautiful lush ferns, and the trees fill in as well. The birds love it out there, and I get all kinds of wild birds coming in for treats from my bird feeders, and a drink from my waterfall. I don't think anyone will buy the lots because they are impossible to build on, and when it rains a river runs through the gulch.

In the summer the oak trees and shrubs fill in and completely block this unattractive view of the neighbors house.
This isn't one of the most attractive views of our yard. As you can see there's that horrible rock "fireplace". If it were more accessible we might be able to use it as a fireplace to sit around when the nights get chilly, but the door faces the shed, and so it's totally useless, and there is no way we could break that thing up so it's here to stay.
This is just another view of the dog run. When we cut down the black locust tree that was in there it sent out suckers all along our fence line, and as long as I keep them trimmed down to four feet, and under it makes a beautiful green hedge in the summer, and a wall of golden leaves in the fall. The only downside is that since it is a deciduous tree the horrible view of the neighbors unkempt yard and house comes back in the wintertime.

And it kept snowing, and snowing, and snowing, and...

This is what the front yard looked like this morning. That flagpole is about 7 feet off the ground, so that gives you some idea of how that snowbank is. Also if you look to the left of the flag you can see our shed. The storm circled around and hit us again later that morning.

6:46PM ~ It took us about 15 minutes to shovel the walkway and we were just relaxing when we both saw a flash of light that looked like lightning out the side window and then we heard something like thunder, but the thunder sounded distant. I opened the back door and could hear the snowplow on one of the nearby streets maybe it wasn’t thunder at all but the sound of the blade hitting the street. That just leaves the bright light to explain. I’d say it might have been a transformer but the lights didn’t go out. Maybe a squirrel got electrocuted. It just doesn’t seem likely that it was lightening. I don’t even know if it can lightning and thunder during a snow storm. Can it thunder and lightning during a snowstorm? I had to know so I Googled it and this is what I found out...

Thunder and lightning sometimes happen in a snowstorm, although it is somewhat rare, said Fred Gadomski, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University. In fact, he said, the biggest snowstorms are those marked by thunder and lightning, a phemomenon meteorologists call a “thunder snow.”

9:46PM ~ We just finished watching a movie and had to go dig out the pathway again, about 4-5 inches has fallen since 7:30. The snowplow just made a run and buried the front of our path so I had to dig it out again. While I was up there I noticed that he pushed some snow up against the side of Eric’s Jeep burying it too, we'll have to dig that out in the morning.

The Nightmare on President's Day Weekend

It rained most of the way here from Corona. I babysat the kids today. When I got to Hwy 38 there was nothin’ but taillights as far as I could see, the line was at least a mile long. The first thing I did was call Linda and tell her of my situation and ask her if she’d mind taking care of the dogs. She said we could stay at her mom’s if we couldn’t get up the hill tonight because the snow was really coming down. (It looked like they got maybe 5-inches in Mountain Home Village, which is below 3000 feet.) Someone came by going the other way on the highway, and said that they closed the road because there was a really bad accident involving multiple cars. I only had a ¼ tank of gas left (I wasn't expecting to run into this kind of snafu), so I went to the Thrifty gas station in Menton and filled up my gas tank at $1.15 a gallon, took about $28.00 but at least I had a full tank now. I used the restroom before heading back up and I thank God I did because it was a long wait. I called CalTrans as I was driving to the gas station and the recording said that the road was open but that they were requiring chains on all vehicles, no exceptions. I decided to stop at the ranger station and put chains on because at least it was dry there and well lighted. I didn’t know if it was still raining/snowing further up the hill. While there a man pulled in next to me and I asked him if they had closed the road and he said they hadn’t got that far and that he was told they were only letting residents up. There was a ray of hope because if they were letting residents up I could go home, however, I still had to wait in that long line of cars. As I approached the viewpoint I could see a yellow CalTrans light board and a bunch of lights, I thought that was where the accident was and that they were going to turn us all back but it was a chain stop with a CHP car there checking to make sure that people had chains on. The whole back up was due to the stupid people who thought they could blow past the chain stop. Since there was an officer there they had to pull over to chain up or turn around and go home. That is what caused all the back up. Stupid People!!!

After I got through the chain stop it was clear driving all the way up the mountain. There was only one time when I had to pull over and that was when a Highway Patrol 4X4 escorted a snowplow past everyone. The road wasn’t bad at all. I made it to our turn-off and ended up behind the snowplow going down our street. I was praying that he didn’t bury our walkway and that there was room for me to park. Thankfully, he didn’t bury the path too badly and he left plenty of room for Eric to park behind me across the street. As soon as I got home all I could do was laugh at how much snow had fallen. The berm is a good foot over the picket fence and its ten feet wide! Just like the last storm.

Snow Again!

27.5° feels like 19°

All in all a very cold and wet next few days are ahead of us. Speaking of snow we got hit with another snowstorm. It was big as the last one and it hit just about the time that most of the snow from the previous storm had melted from the last one too. So, we had snow above the three foot picket fence again and 5 1/2 foot berms. Eric is having a war with the snow plow guy. Yesterday just as he was loading up the Jeep the snow plow came by and buried our walkway to the street so he had to dig it out again. Now we have put stakes with blue flags on them on either side of the walkway and we are hoping that he won't bury us again. And now we are supposed to get hit with a storm at least as bad as the last one. That means we will have another foot or more on top of the snow we have now. I hope we don't get snowed in again. I can't afford to not be down the hill for Becca, so that means if it starts to snow heavily I'm going to have to stay at her place until the weather clears up and I can come back home. Unfortunately, both of us will be down the hill when this big storm hits so we won't know how bad it is until we try to come up. Thankfully, our neighbors will watch out for the dogs

Blue skies, smiling at me. Nothing but blue skies do I see...

Today it was clear, and we started the day by digging a path out to the street the berm had now grown to 5 ft high. The snow was too deep to dig out the gate so we dug out the path that Derran (our neighbor) left when he came over to visit yesterday. He found the narrowest part of the berm he could find, which was on the parking pad, and crawled over the snow bank and then walked across the pad, and down the planter to the front door. We needed to get Eric's Jeep dug out from across the street; it looked like a giant snowball. He has more than two feet of snow on the roof. Derran, and Linda came over, and helped us dig the Jeep out for a while even with their help it still took us 3 hours to dig it out! We got it out just in time for the snowplow to come by again. It was a guy in a grader, and when he saw our street he apologized, and said he had no idea our road was so bad. He went a got a guy with a front loader, and the two of them cleared the road down to the pavement. The guy in the front loader took all the snow, and pushed it off into the vacant lot on the other side of Steve’s place. This guy was really nice, and really knew his stuff. He dug my jeep out, and then cleared the whole street so that we could actually park on the road. This morning it was a nightmare. Before he showed up the street was buried in 20-inches of snow, and cars were stranded all over the place. People couldn't get down it so they just abandoned their vehicles wherever they stoppedLinda was in touch will CalTrans, and she said that they aren't letting anyone up even residents. You can go down the mountain but they won't let you back up. As of 1:30pm they shut down Hwy 38 completely because there's an avalanche above us, so no traffic can come down our way from Big Bear or Arrowhead. Eric had to cancel several students this week because of the storm but he is determined to go down to his gig Friday night. I'm worried for him, there's alot of ice on the road. I asked him to stay down the hill if he can get down, and not to come back up or to worry about me. I have plenty of food, wood for the fire, and we just bought a Coleman stove if the power goes out again.As of 4:09 pm (which is when I'm typing this letter) the skies are still blue over us but there are menacing clouds coming over the ridge.The weather man predicted sun with scattered clouds for the next few days but we have another storm coming in from the Gulf of Alaska that's supposed to hit on Christmas Eve: just what we need more snow. If it does hit I don't think we will be having the kids up here for Christmas. It would just be too dangerous so, we'll have to reschedule it for another day.

Enough Snow, I mean it!

Still snowing, hit the 15-inch mark. At 4:15 in the morning the power came back on, which was a blessing because it meant that the blower on our fireplace insert worked, and it didn't take long to heat the cabin up. We spent most of the day playing games, and watching the snow come down. The snowplow driver that came by that night broke down our picket fence when he plowed the street. To give you an idea of how wide the berm is in front of the house, our picket fence sits 10 ft back on the property, and the snow drift is about 4 ½ ft high. When we looked out the door last night before we went to bed you couldn't see the fence or the gate any more, and the foot prints I had left earlier in the day, when I went to the trash can, had been all filled in. There was almost 2 ft of snow on the roof, and at least that much by the door. The snowplow came back, and made a run around 4am. It snowed steadily all last night.

Diggin' In

It snowed all night, and at some point we hit the 12-inch mark. It’s snowing still. This the morning around 4am the power went out. Great! Around noon there was a temporary lull in the storm so I suggested that we should go down the hill to Wal-Mart, and buy some supplies, and get a Coleman stove, some propane gas for it, some lamp oil, wicks, and candles. We stocked up on canned goods, and simple meals like Macaroni and Cheese. By the time we got home it was starting to get dark, and we still had to take all the food down the embankment, which was now about 24 inches high. Eric started a fire, and I started taking all of the food in the fridge out to the backyard, and burying it in a snow bank. We roasted hot dogs in the fireplace, and ate them by lantern light. We already had a Colman propane lantern in the emergency kit I kept in the shed, also without power the blower on our fireplace insert didn't work, and it got a little nippy in the house. Needless to say it was an exhausting day, and we bundled up in warm clothes, and went to bed around 9:30. It snowed steadily all night.

What A Transformation!

When we bought the house back in October of 2000 it looked like this half hidden behind an overgrown yard and painted a dark brown color that literally made it fade into the background.





After some serious trimming of trees and clearing of overgrown shrubs (they were a fire hazard anyway),and a lot of hard work by me busting out that driveway over the summer, the house looked like this.this.

And now it looks like this.
There was only one thing missing and that came next.

The finishing touch was the picket fence. The process took about a month to complete and it was worth every penny.

Now I just have to work on the landscaping.

A Stairway To Heaven

This is my second attempt at steps and I think I did much better this time. I found these wonderful bricks at Home Depot. They can be used for small retaining walls and weigh about 5 lbs a piece. I like the way the seemlessly blend in with the soil, and they are really good at holding it back and staying in place.

It's Getting There...

We have almost finished at this point. The house, the shed and the carport were finished but we still needed more room to store our stuff; the lumber in the yard is from the original shed I wanted built. I wanted it built across the front of the yard thinking it might give us some privacy in the front of of the house The shed was going to be 10x20, but as they put the sides up I realized that it looked horrible so we had the brothers unassemble it and use the wood to build the two new sheds. They were the nicest peopl to work with and they were very professional with reasonable rates. They didn't even charge us to take the original shed down!

Now that the shed and the house are painted the same it's not looking so bad. We bought a patio set and you can barely see it in the side yard. We also added shutters to two of the windows and coordinating flower boxes to the shed.

It's all starting to come together...

You can see in the backyard that the other shed is now completed and painted to match the rest of the house. I removed all the iris’ from in front of the Adirondack chairs and planted some hedges behind them; they are still thriving. After all of the commotion during painting all my Johnny-Jump-Ups died and did not come back again. The Virginia creeper is growing back on the trellis although it had to be severely cut back so they could paint the house. It’s slowly beginning to recover. The vinca has almost completely covered the unsightly and useless propane tank. Another project on the horizon will be to move the hose bib to the side of the house, right now it’s behind the trellis and is a bear to get at.

You're going to paint it what color?!?

Here you can see the shed trim getting a coat of primer. We really freaked some people on the street out because they thought that this was going to be the color of the house. I also planted a row of Hawthorne shrubs at the top of the street.

The Box in the Front Yard

At this point the shed looks like a hideous box in the front yard and I was beginning to have serious doubts about why I agreed to put it there in the first place. But it serves a purpose, you can see how the shed effectively hides the neighbors house, which now has a two story room addition off the back and is painted pumpkin yellow, which is a sight more uglier than my boxy shed. The previous owners sold the house to some people, who let’s say have unusual color tastes. I think they were trying to go for the color of pine wood and ended up looking like a yellow orange crayon instead.

Shades of Gray

This is what the house looked like after it was primed. Notice we took off the railing that went across the top window in the front of the house. We also removed all of the alpine-like shelves under the windowsills. They were rotting anyway and they didn’t fit with the new look I was going for.

Sanford and Son meets the Beverly Hillbilies

This is what was hidden behind that wooden section of fence you see from the front yard. I know it’s a mess. There’s the cheap tin shed, our gardening tools, the trash cans, branches from a tree we pruned ourselves, a piece of plywood we have nailed to the side of the house to cover up the previous owners doggie door, (if a dog can get out a raccoon can get in!), and last but not least the worst “no, no” of all… firewood stacked on the deck up against the house. All of this stuff has since been removed and it is now the site of a very nice dog run. The plywood has been removed from the side of the house and is now been properly mended and painted, and there's no more litter in the yard just two dog houses. By the way, the dark brown section of wood planking, in the upper right hand corner, is our neighbor’s idea of a good fence.

Keeping Up With The Neighbors

At this point I'm ashamed to say that our yard didn't look any better than the next door neighbors, but ours was temporary, not so for next door. This is what the side yard looked like right after we had the chain link put up. We didn’t have any proper wood stackers, which we have since remedied, and so we piled the wood along the fence. Since then we added another section of fence (about where the blue tarp is)and a gate to make a rectangular dog run. We set aside ten feet in the back corner to stack our wood in.

An Unsightly View...

This is a view of the front yard on the left side. There is the piece of log that was never removed. What an eyesore! The tree is another Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). This area is a gentle slope of about 3 to 3 ½ feet. I am considering planting some evergreen trees or shrubs there to hide the nasty view. The house next door is a rental and the landlord (slumlord actually) never does any repairs or maintenance on the place. How do you like the blue and green tarp covered leanto?

A Path That Leads to Nowhere...

This is a view of the lower yard near the front door. It was mostly covered by asphalt when we moved in. I had to place a berm where the rocks are to keep the rainwater from washing away the yard. Just below the propane tank the dirt poured out onto a lovely set of steps and a pathway made out of rocks that led to the backyard. There was another large tree in the corner just opposite or the propane tank that one of the previous owners had cut down to a stump. The ground, shown in the lower right hand corner, is about 3 feet higher than the pathway and is held in place by a rock wall. The other side of the path is bordered by another, lower, rock wall and there is vinca planted all over there; it’s also where the maple and evergreen trees are planted.

A slippery slope

This is the view from the front door looking up the yard to street level. It is an even slope, and used to be filled with native ferns before we had to have the septic system replaced after that the yard never looked the same. They had a lot of excess dirt and when they tried to place it evenly around it killed all the plants. The ferns are making a slow comeback but it will take years for them to fill back in if ever.