Landscape Update

Thanks to Aynde's suggestion I took some pictures yesterday to update you on my progress this year in the still-virgin landscape.

As I begin to wrap up Season Two here on the homestead and look back I didn't get as much done this season as I had hoped but the cool and incredibly violent and wet spring really set me back. Steve and I were able to get the play area done before summer really set in.

Next on the tour is the vegetable garden. All I was able to plant were some herbs and pumpkins. I've never grown pumpkins before and there are, surprisingly, only TWO plants growning. I've counted at least 10 basketball-sized pumpkins. And you can also see the leaves starting to fade and the pumpkins starting to turn orange. Perhaps next year I'll only plant one.....

This next picture looks really pathetic. I over-wintered these plants last year on the South side of my shed and they've been doing great! I moved them last week. They got a bit "shocky." Even though they look horrible and I've been watering them they still have their leaves so I'm hopeful they'll bounce back next year. Perhaps I should have waited until they went dormant on their own.....

Finally, there is the Deck Project that consumed our entire holiday weekend. Here are a couple of pictures of how crappy the deck looked before:

Pretty crappy looking, huh? We figure this is 10 year-old stain.

And here are some photos of the deck after two coats of stain:
Look at how it beads up!!

Here you can clearly see where I've been and where I stopped. Isn't it GORGEOUS?!?!?! I still have to do the top rail and all bastrates on the top deck and I'm trying to decide if I just want to stain the inside parts that everyone is going to see or if I really want to spend the extra time to stain the outside of the deck as well.....parts of it I can't get to due to my Autumn Splendore clematis that is growing up the four supports and onto the balistrates. We still have just under a month to get this done. It's just such a stinky, sticky job.