The Stuff We Put Up With

Part of the general clean-up for Catherine's and Forrest's wedding was to tidy up the property.   We had a gardening crew come in and do a general purpose Clean Sweep from front to back and side to side.   Granted, it's not landscaped, but it is simply AMAZING how nicely it turned out!

This is the "North 40" .. it's all hard-pack adobe clay.  The intent was for as many guests to park here as was possible and then to put the overflow onto a nearby street.  We were astonished to find out that we fit ALL THE CARS ... and there must have been at least 20 ... in the North 40!  

Here's the front lawn, as viewed from the parking area.  In the foreground is the "dance floor".  You can see the mini-lights that were strung from the house to the trees in the background.  These lights formed the most beautiful virtual ceiling over the dining area.  On the right side, you can see a speaker in the area where the band played.  In the distance, around the perimeter of the lawn, you can see 2 (of the 3) park benches.  These are refurbished benches that Tom's Dad built in the 1950's, when they had humungus parties.  The third bench (which you can't see) still had the actual redwood that Tom's Dad used ... and it was still as strong today as it was back then.  We were told that the redwood used back then was simply structurally stronger than the farmed redwood used today.  Way in the background, you'll see a blue heap.  That is the general area of our "campground" where we had a campfire late into the reception.

Around the corner from the lawn is our deck.  The buffet tables for the food were set up along the railing that you see on the right side of the picture.

And then there's the campground area where we had a lovely, lovely campfire.  We moved the benches from the perimeter of the lawn to in front of the campfire ring.
























*MY* small attempt at beautification was to plant flowers in the planters on the chimney side of the house and in front of the house.  Those of you who know my infamous Black Thumb are already cringing at the fate of those poor flowers.  Oh ye of little faith!


We purchased some potting soil to fill up the 3 planter boxes and I chose a number of flowering plants from what was available.  It's always been difficult to have flowers in the chimney planter boxes because they never get direct sunlight.  Lots of light, but not sun.  Most flowers prefer sunlight over indirect light.  

BUT ... all I needed was for these flowers to look fabulous for ONE DAY!  I happily planted petunias (I love petunias), alyssum (a wonderful low level mass of tiny, tiny blooms), voilas, delphiniums, dianthus (I *love* the entire carnation family!), geraniums and some others that I can't quite remember.  DANG, they looked wonderful when I was done!

Deep in my heart of hearts, I just KNEW that if precautions weren't taken, my pretty flowers were going to be fodder for the deer that wander through.  So, the night before the wedding, I covered up all 3 planter boxes with ugly orange plastic construction fencing.  By golly, those flowers were gonna look nice for our daugher's wedding!

 

The day of the wedding dawned, the fencing came down and everything ... the ceremony and reception ... was just wonderful.  I do believe that everyone had a lovely time.  After everyone had left, I succumbed to tired eyes and went to bed.

The next day (the day after the wedding), I went outside to admire my flowers.  I knew that the fencing had thwarted the chickens and the deer.  What I had NOT thought of was ... the turkey.

 The next time I saw the chimney planter boxes, they looked  like this:   

Interestingly, the front planter box was still intact.  Either the fowl creatures don't like any of the flowers in the front box OR they haven't discovered it yet.  I'm taking bets that the latter is the case.  Chickens are pretty stupid. :-)

 I still had hope, though.  There WERE some leaves and stems left on what was left of the petunia plants.  Maybe, just maybe, if I kept watering them, the root system would come through with new shoots.  Hope does spring eternal, ya know.

When I saw the planter boxes the NEXT day, I realized the war was lost.  I had won the first battle but lost the subsequent skirmishes and, with them, the war.    ::sigh::

And this time, IT WASN'T MY FAULT the flowers were dead!  Tom doesn't hold out ANY hope that flowers will ever flourish there ... not as long as those stupid chickens or the resident turkey are around.  I floated the image of thriving green shrubbery (not too expensive, maybe two heights to get the bi-level effect) instead, but Tom nixed the entire idea of living plants.  Too difficult to maintain.

He's going for some really nice looking fake plants.  And in the end ... that just might be our best bet.  :-)

But ... they sure did look purdy for the reception.  :-)