Donaldson Crew Adventures

We haven't had a vegetable garden since we lived in Boise, so now that we had some space, I thought it would be fun to have one here at the new house. Few challenges - ground is rocky, soil is like sand, short growing season and their are a lot of animals that would love some soft leafy greens - especially deer.  In February I started researching and doing some planning.  The idea was that when we did our landscaping in the back, I would get the team to scrape an area and bring an irrigation line down to the area when they put the rest of the irrigation system in. My inspiration for the garden was here.  Beautiful but unfortunately no plans so I had to make up my own plans just by looking at the pictures. I also used the farmers almanac online garden planner tool just to see how it might look.    

 The garden would be a set of raised beds, with a 5-6 foot wooden fence around it.  The back landscaping went in late march, so I ordered the wood and set to work.  The biggest challenge was getting the base level.  its funny how the ground feels pretty level until you actually start to measure it.  The west side (right side in most of the photos) was at least 10 inches lower which meant getting a load of gravel dropped in the driveway and a lot of hauling gravel in a wheelbarrow down to bring it up somewhat.  Additionally... like a lot of plans, they seem right until you get started so due to large boulders messing up post placement and other challenges I had to make a number of changes and concessions as I went along.  Here is a series of photos of the build process.

Here is the finished product.  Ultimately I think it turned out pretty nice and we look forward to growing some fresh veggies for years to come!  The only thing left to do is install the drip irrigation system.  Abbie and PJ helps plant as well... for now we are hose watering it until the  irrigation is running... hopefully in next couple days.  

The summer solstice is still a few weeks away but with the calendar turn to June, and some beautiful weather this weekend, we will call this the formal kick off to summer in central Oregon.  Kelly was gone on girls weekend so it was the rest of the crew making the best of it!  Campfire in the backyard Friday night and a day at Scout lake on Saturday.  Ending of Saturday evening with a glorious sunset off the back porch.  

Deer are normal to have around here, but over the past few months a pair of peacocks seems to have made a 6 house block in our neighborhood their home.   

Last summer, we did our front landscaping near the end of June.  We focused here as that was the first thing people saw when they came up to the house.   This spring I wanted to get our sides and back done a little earlier so we could enjoy the yard through the entire summer.   

Here is a 'before' video from about 2.5 weeks ago.  

Here is the 'after' video from today.  They finished Friday and spend the day today putting some rocks along edges where it was steep to prevent erosion.  

Abbie spent St. Paddy's day performing at many retirement homes in Bend and ending the day at a pub in town. It was a fun day for Abbie and all the dancers. 

A few weeks ago LuLu and Papa were visiting and were able to attend Grandparent's Day at school. They took some funny pictures and had a great morning.

Today Hunter’s youth group with Church did a snowshoe outing. It was also exciting for me as it was my first outdoor event since being in the hospital over a month ago. It was a great day.

Today at school was Dr. Seuss Day. Abbie and Hunter dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2 and Noah dressed up as the spotted dog from the book "Put Me In The Zoo." It was a fun day!

Last spring I did some pipe shelving for Noah in his room above his desk. Hunter wanted some as well but we came up with a different design for his. Like Noah’s we used reclaimed barn wood that is over 100 years old giving it a rustic feel with the pipe.

For the last few days we have been socked in with freezing fog.  It makes for yucky days that seem to stay the same time all day long.  There is almost zero air movement however the fog has produced some amazing frost art creations on all sorts of things outside.  There must also be some slight air movement as most of the ice crystals point northward.

And Not just plants... Pic 1 - chain links, Pic 2 - Wind chimes, Pic 3 - wire stuck in the trunk of a Juniper

Today we actually got about 1 hour of partial sun so took some pics with the sun shining

Here is another example of frost art that I found on my car one morning going to work when we lived in Wales.