do my back-porch projects

My husband doesn’t seem motivated to go to the hardware store & get the drill bits, & I have WAY too much on my plate to take on that job myself. So I decree that these projects are done.

The porch is looking really nice—tonight I added a plant, one that had gotten too overgrown for the greenhouse window. The herbs are thriving. We have already used basil, chives, parsley, & oregano from the planters multiple times.

One weird thing, though: this year a squirrel or bird has fallen in love with the dirt in my various porch pots. We never catch it in the act, but every time I go out to check there are holes dug in the pots, next to the plants. I keep filling them with fresh soil & sweeping up the dirt that has been tossed onto the porch floor. So far all the plants are surviving this just fine. Is this a common syndrome? Funny.

Yesterday afternoon was just delicious. I went to our favorite greenhouse & picked out herbs (chives; three kinds of basil; two kinds of oregano; thyme; lemon verbena; “mojito mint”; parsley) & ornamental plants. Then I spent the rest of the beautiful afternoon & early evening emptying & refilling the balcony boxes & pots . . . with periodic runs down the short stairs to get a bunch of laundry done.

Finally, I swept the porch & arranged the furniture invitingly. It looks great.

My husband says he has programmed a reminder to himself to go to the hardware store today to get some bigger drill bits. Then hopefully we can hang the hooks & finish this project!

as it seems at first.

My husband was helping me on Sunday afternoon; we were planning to get all the hooks hung so that these projects could be finished at last. But it turns out the main post is VERY hard wood & our little drill bit couldn’t penetrate it. So now he is going to buy a bigger drill bit & try that.

Meanwhile Hurricane Ike killed my coleuses & daisies. They really, really don’t like living in swampy water; I had to pull them up & compost them affectionately. If I have a chance, I’ll replace them with some bright fall flowers; if not, there’s always next year. The herbs are still thriving.

The Case of the Disappearing Table has been solved: e-mails among our neighbors apparently led someone to find it & return it. It was on the porch when I went out last night to water plants. Yay!

Now to get the remaining little pieces of my projects done before August 29 . . .

Who’da thunk I’d have this many obstacles to completing these little projects? On July 4 we were away, & our neighbors in the building cleared a few things from our back porch so they could use it as a stage (a jazz trio would be playing for a backyard picnic). Afterward my hanging plants were returned, but a little table holding my pending project items – clothesline, hooks to hang it, ornamental hooks for hanging plants, a macrame plant hanger, a couple of bags with a little leftover potting soil – never came back.

I just assumed it had been left on our neighbors’ porch & didn’t worry about it. However, last week I went looking & couldn’t find it. The neighbor who moved it (but doesn’t remember it at all) has now gone looking as well & has no idea where it could be.

Isn’t that an odd thing to vanish? It’s not as if a picnic guest could have stuck it in his pocket & taken it away. I’m still hoping it will turn up in a shadowy corner of the basement or something. The neighbors will reimburse us if it doesn’t . . . I’m quite perplexed & bemused.

The basil is going nuts. I’m going to have to learn to make pesto—a pleasant prospect!

The lemon balm is prolific as well. I wonder if it would be good in sun tea . . .

Now that the roof is finished, & now that I’m about to complete my work blitz, I must make plans for the finishing touches on the back porch: putting up hooks for the hanging pots & stringing the clothesline.

you have a lot of work to do

Roofers are working on our building, & yesterday they lowered a huge tarp over the porches & knocked one of my new windowboxes & its brackets completely off our railing! Arggghhhhh! I noticed it only late last night, when I peeked outside to see whether the flowers needed water. I found the box under the porch; it had obviously been on one end for a while, since most of the soil had shifted. All the plants were still there, fortunately (chives, mint, daisy, coleus). I put it on the floor of the porch & added more soil.

This morning, just as I was getting ready to leave for work, down came another tarp on the other side of the porch! I hurried out to rescue the other two windowboxes & brackets; now they too are on the porch floor. A worker in the yard responded nonchalantly when I said something about the other one’s having been knocked off.

It just seems as if they could have warned us ahead of time to remove & protect our plants & anything else on our porch railings. And at least apologized for knocking down my flowers.

There’s still enough floor space for me to take my exercise routine out onto the porch, but it’s clear that I should wait to install the hooks for hanging plants, as well as the clothesline, until after the roof work is done. In the meantime I hope all the plants get enough sunlight—I may have to move them out to a corner of the backyard (if there IS a corner where debris is not falling as the old roof is demolished).

Sigh.

cool

Today was a nearly perfect Saturday. I didn’t do any of my freelance project (will have to make it up later). Went running to do errands: picking up a prescription, then to the hardware store to get some more potting soil & pots & windowbox brackets. WALKED home with that rather heavy load (in cloth bags, by the way). :-)

After breakfast, I made butterscotch brownies with walnuts & chocolate chips for the baby shower that I would be helping to host later. While they were baking, I started working on my plants, out on the porch because finally we are having spring weather in Chicago. I got the third windowbox filled, then two regular terracotta pots. Was able to find some wood pieces to wedge under the brackets to make them work on our railings. They look lovely.

The shower (coed, in our neighbor’s yard across the street) was really fun. Afterward I did a bit of grocery shopping & bought one more hanging plant (portulaca or rose moss; I love that name). In the supermarket I felt almost ecstatic as I contemplated the bright fruits & veggies that are actually in season (instead of being shipped in from the southern hemisphere).

At home I grilled organic chicken, made salad, & heated up beans. My husband came home from his bike ride & we had a fabulous dinner together.

This is the way Saturdays should be. Our plan is that by the end of this year I won’t need to take on any more big freelance projects, so hopefully more of my Saturdays will be like this.

Re the porch projects: on a little stand I assembled the pieces that remain to be done: (1) hooks for the hanging plants, (2) brackets for attaching the terracotta pots to posts, (3) clothesline & hooks for hanging it. I might even hang some wind chimes. Might even finish tomorrow afternoon! We’ll see.