Crest Avenue Flora.

Chad and I have been working hard to improve the aesthetics and productivity of the front yard.

Here are some of the first fruits of our labor:



We have six tomato plants (two brandywines, one red cherry, and three yellow pears), two basils, one collard (and oh how the caterpillars love to munch on him), and some okra seedlings. Chad created two raised beds like this one from cinder blocks.



Chad is head gardner in the cinder block plots. I'm in charge of the flower gardens, which are still under construction. We used the old fence posts to hang our burglar bars. We'll be making raised beds like the one in the photo for each burglar bar. Flowers in front, sunflowers, okra, and maybe some pole beans in back. In the winter, we'll switch out the tall stuff for blackberry vines and maybe some antique roses.





We've put all the little succulents and cacti that we've been carrying around in pots for the last five years into this make-shift rock garden. Everybody seems to appreciate the chance to spread their roots.



And our neighbor gave us this little guy, who seems to be enjoying his sunny home with fellow succulents and cacti.

Chad slaves away...

on curtains. He's been working his fingers to the bone, and now the guest room has some lovely green curtains.

The front porch

At long last - a new front porch.

The old one was sinking into the ground because it was only held up by toothpicks. Or rather, 2x4s. 2x4s are similarly unsuitable for holding up porches.

Old toothpicky-sinking porch.



New porch.

And the windows...

We finally replace all the windows. No more water leaking in the house! I assume that also means no more heat/cold leaking in our out, too. At least not as much heat/cold leaking in and out. . . Some other exciting features of the new windows - working locks (good-bye burglar bars!) and screens. (Oh - and Chad made the curtains with our new sewing machine.)

In progress:



Finished:

Friends of Rooster Haus 2

Two developments on the animal friend front:

First - Chad finally got a good picture of the rooster, who has been strangely absent from our lives the past week. I wonder if he became an Easter coq-a-vin? We always threatened him with that, especially when he peered in our kitchen window to cluck at us while we cooked, but we never would have acted on it. So if you see this rooster, please tell him we didn't mean it. He can come back to roost in the tree by the kitchen. We promise not to eat him.



Second - Chad and I briefly fostered a little dachsund whom some friends found roaming the streets. During his brief stay at Rooster Haus, we called him Jerome. He was a perfect gentleman throughout his stay, excepting some amorous overtures toward our friend Chrissy. But allergies finally got the best of us, and Jerome has found a new home where he can be a bed dog, which was pretty much his ambition in life.

Something there is that doesn't love a fence.

And that something, or rather someone, is Chad. . . and me. We disassembled the chain link in front of the house. We plan to create a front yard garden using the fence poles and burglar bars for plants that need a little support to grow. (More pictures when this plan becomes a reality.) We've got some tomato plants, rosemary, okra, and sunflower seeds. We also had some collards, but the aphids enjoyed them before we did.

Here's the before:



And the after:

Gallo-a-gallo

And now we answer the question, what is noisier than ONE feral rooster in the neighborhood? TWO feral roosters.

Several weeks ago we woke up to different crowing. A full cock-a-doodle-doo, as opposed to the cock-a-doodle of THE rooster. Then there was a call and response - cock a doodle doo.... cock a doodle... cock a doodle doo.... cock a doodle - that ultimately converged on our back yard.

Introducing Blondie:



And you already know Red:



Red is about twice as big as Blondie, but it is possible that Blondie has about twice as much spunk. So, although Red won the first battle-for-our-backyard (which ended with Red on top of the storage shed crowing until he had no voice left), Blondie has won just about every other re-match.