Taking a drive and making a home
April 28
On Saturday we decided we needed to get out of the house. Usually, when we leave the house it
is to go to the grocery or hardware store. Like everyone else that is life during the virus.
Saturday we took a drive out to the Columbia Gorge, a beautiful drive on the Washington side of the river, a small winding two-lane road. We stopped to take a couple of photos overlooking the river and farms. After an hour of driving, we cross the river into Oregon at Hood River and we pulled off the freeway and took another two-lane road towards Portland. We pulled off the road and ate our picnic deli lunch in the car since it was still raining.
Like everyone else, our hair is in need of a salon and a cut. Ron asked me to give him a
buzz cut and fortunately, between the two of us we got it done and there was no
disaster.
We are now in our third week of yard work. The back yard has been so neglected by the
previous owners. Much of our time has been weeding and weeding and weeding. In
addition, we removed all the grass on each side of the path to the casita and that took a
long time because the grass has an incredible root mat underground which makes it
very difficult to get the dirt loose so we can take it to the yard debris recycling center.
Actually, our neighbor has a truck and we pay him to take it.
This week we have been working on a bed of yucca and let me tell you without Ron I
would never be able to tackle it. Even he has to take breaks. The bed is about 20 feet
long and it has taken three days to mostly remove them. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, we
will continue to comb through the dirt and grass in the bed looking for roots and what
looks like potatoes in the dirt.
Before that bed, we weeded a hedge that was infested
with weeds and grass. At times, we had to lie on the ground in order to get under the hedge to remove the weeds. OY! I will say we sleep well at night because we are exhausted. But neither of us can believe how much progress we have made. Another neighbor gave us some strawberry plants so yesterday we cleaned out the raised bed that had some strawberry plants, amended the soil, and planted the new strawberries then watered it. Boy, it sprang to life and looks great.
We don’t know when we will tackle the redesign of the backyard. We are just trying to clean-up the plants that are there. Many have revived with the pruning, weeding,
amending the soil, and watering. They literally look happy. We have moved some plants o better locations. We don’t know what we want in the back yard. It is quite big by our
standards. The former owner planted over 30 plants along the fence line. Kind of boring and uncreative or even eye appealing. All were totally engulfed with weeds. He ‘controlled’ the weeds by putting sheets of bark under the plants. Hence, we now have carpenter ants on the property. Today the eco exterminator came to spray.
As a reader of our blog you know that all our plans to move to Mexico are not
happening and now with the virus, we cannot make any other plans until the virus isn’t an
issue. We still would like to live in another country but we cannot fully explore that option until we can travel. But Ron and I know from experience that regardless of what we ultimately do, it will be fine. It really pays to remain flexible when making plans and that is certainly true in our current situation. We are most fortunate and we never lose sight of it. I took a few photos of the front yard in bloom and some of our weed work results. We have divided and transplanted some hostas from the front yard to the casita path. The day we did that I thought I would die I was so physically tired. The last two days were very taxing physically as well. But we beam at our progress, knowing this is
just the beginning. I never remember a winter/spring with so much sun. The times are
a’changin' as is the climate!
On Saturday we decided we needed to get out of the house. Usually, when we leave the house it
is to go to the grocery or hardware store. Like everyone else that is life during the virus.
Saturday we took a drive out to the Columbia Gorge, a beautiful drive on the Washington side of the river, a small winding two-lane road. We stopped to take a couple of photos overlooking the river and farms. After an hour of driving, we cross the river into Oregon at Hood River and we pulled off the freeway and took another two-lane road towards Portland. We pulled off the road and ate our picnic deli lunch in the car since it was still raining.
Like everyone else, our hair is in need of a salon and a cut. Ron asked me to give him a
buzz cut and fortunately, between the two of us we got it done and there was no
disaster.
We are now in our third week of yard work. The back yard has been so neglected by the
previous owners. Much of our time has been weeding and weeding and weeding. In
addition, we removed all the grass on each side of the path to the casita and that took a
long time because the grass has an incredible root mat underground which makes it
very difficult to get the dirt loose so we can take it to the yard debris recycling center.
Actually, our neighbor has a truck and we pay him to take it.
This week we have been working on a bed of yucca and let me tell you without Ron I
would never be able to tackle it. Even he has to take breaks. The bed is about 20 feet
long and it has taken three days to mostly remove them. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, we
will continue to comb through the dirt and grass in the bed looking for roots and what
looks like potatoes in the dirt.
 |
| Tricia getting ahead of the weeds |
with weeds and grass. At times, we had to lie on the ground in order to get under the hedge to remove the weeds. OY! I will say we sleep well at night because we are exhausted. But neither of us can believe how much progress we have made. Another neighbor gave us some strawberry plants so yesterday we cleaned out the raised bed that had some strawberry plants, amended the soil, and planted the new strawberries then watered it. Boy, it sprang to life and looks great.
We don’t know when we will tackle the redesign of the backyard. We are just trying to clean-up the plants that are there. Many have revived with the pruning, weeding,
amending the soil, and watering. They literally look happy. We have moved some plants o better locations. We don’t know what we want in the back yard. It is quite big by our
standards. The former owner planted over 30 plants along the fence line. Kind of boring and uncreative or even eye appealing. All were totally engulfed with weeds. He ‘controlled’ the weeds by putting sheets of bark under the plants. Hence, we now have carpenter ants on the property. Today the eco exterminator came to spray.
As a reader of our blog you know that all our plans to move to Mexico are not
happening and now with the virus, we cannot make any other plans until the virus isn’t an
issue. We still would like to live in another country but we cannot fully explore that option until we can travel. But Ron and I know from experience that regardless of what we ultimately do, it will be fine. It really pays to remain flexible when making plans and that is certainly true in our current situation. We are most fortunate and we never lose sight of it. I took a few photos of the front yard in bloom and some of our weed work results. We have divided and transplanted some hostas from the front yard to the casita path. The day we did that I thought I would die I was so physically tired. The last two days were very taxing physically as well. But we beam at our progress, knowing this is
just the beginning. I never remember a winter/spring with so much sun. The times are
a’changin' as is the climate!
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