The Dog Days

It's been a busy summer travel season at Citycabin. That's the excuse we're offering for few home improvements and infrequent updates. During packing the most senior cat tried a classic suitcase trick but little did he know that Davey Crockett hats are not in style in Caliswedornia.


Despite a cool, dry spring the latest gardening projects were going according to plan.

Excellent pond plant choices this year have made for clear water and happy fish...




...so happy that our 4 pioneering goldfish are now 4 goldfish and 3+ baby goldfish. If you're patient and the light is just right, you might catch a glimpse of one of the small, gray offspring. Adults eat their young so professionals separate the two groups after hatching. At citycabin it's all about natural selection and we're rooting for the young to be good at hiding until they're too big to be eaten. Half-Incher is a fine young man we have high hopes for him in the future.

This isn't him. He's too good to be caught in a photograph. This is his enemy. Or mom or dad.

And the inaugural vegetable gardens offered a nice crop of lettuce, a fair amount of green beans, pretty-but-stomach-burning inedible radishes, a few cucumbers, micro carrots, and zero-yielding broccoli and strawberries. Just wait until next year!




From heirloom to cherry we have 8 different varieties of tomato plants in various stages of development. They're a bit further along than this June photo



Actually more like this:




but an early frost or squirrel attack might prove catastrophic.


In summation the summer of 2009 will be remembered most for plants, ponds and critters not from Citycabin proper but other places.

Keep 'er between the lines

Look out for trees

A nice walk among 1000+ year-old trees

Senior picture

Note to self: remember to turn left ahead

and right, then left, then right, then left

And don't question who owns the beach

These three do

Some thousands of miles away...

are wild berries to be picked.

Getting around sans Mustang

Look out for the locals

They're crafty

Even the ants don't mess around.

Brackish Lake Superior





Beautiful



Refreshing





Best finished with sauna

some pun using the classic film Willow should go here

we've played with sticks this week. or, to be more specific, with diamond willow, which is essentially a fungal infection gone right. in relation to this particular willow, here is one of the most poorly designed pages on the interwebs.

about two winters ago, it seemed like a good idea to trudge into a frozen swamp, clamber through some runty trees, pick out cool dead branches, drag them to a road, load them, use a sacrificed kitchen knife to scrape off all the bark, sand for hours, and then seal these branches (thanks for the help, dad! i love being an only child). the result is pure awesome:

so, these finished branches (each is about eight-ish feet long) sat in our garage for a long time. not because we didn't like the wood, but because we weren't quite sure how to best use it. there was thought of a Bird-Feeding Station (the idea grew to such epic proportions that we just gave up on it. tough to build disneyland in the back yard, you know?), something like a tripod, maybe railing, a border, who knows? and then, drunk on the feeling that the end of school will give a couple of teachers, we just went for it.

we made art:


and then we decided to shabby chic the railing on the front steps.

before (SO lovely):





last time you saw sparks, it was for stomp. now he's working to join savage aural hotbed:




a drill press older than the ages of all my pets plus me combined helped in process, along with the dremel, which seems to make an appearance in most home improvements:



after:








and you might think snakes are awesome, but so are birds:

Shovel Fever

The blue tarp was supposed to suppress growth and set us up for a clean, blank slate for planting a new shade garden.

For future reference, multiple weeks under a blue tarp = the most lush grass in the yard with minimal dandelion growth. Don't be fooled, this patch under the oak is little but dirt and the most hearty crabgrass, creeping charlie and other miscellaneous weeds by mid June.

Time to alter the shade garden preparation plans. Deep tillage became sod relocation. We love you sparrows but we're not so down with moonscaping the yard. This spring there are a number of other fine places to get a dust bath.



Their fun was happening here:


Our fun was happening here:



A portion of the turf crumbled during transplantation but even 1% success beats the erosion that was occurring before.






Thanks to friends, family and the st. paul farmer's market, we had built up a nice stockpile of plants waiting to move in. Finishing the path and mulching the garden had to wait. There wasn't much motivation left in the evening after this citycabin project.



During the fun this guy showed up over our heads. This is the first sighting of a scarlet tanager around citycabin. They are apparently often overlooked given their propensity for remaining high in the tree canopy.



And the bubbling pond sounds have brought a few new friends this spring. I'm a dolt, so this intially looked like a gigantic strange-acting wren that really liked falling water. Instead, "books" and my resident bird expert tell me this is an American Redstart, it prefers to breed in moist mixed and deciduous woods with undergrowth and in swamp woods (we fooled you with our that-day purchased dwarf cattails, sucker!). It droops its wings and fans its tail with bright plumage to flush insect dinner.




Update from an earlier posting: Our mallard buds have dropped by every day or three since the initial visit. Before this cat was brought in from the mean streets of South Turtle Lake I once watched her stalk wild geese, outweighing her 5x at least. It's good to see that she hasn't lost her sense of adventure.

herculii

a yard of soil is 4x4x4.

a yard of soil is 2,000 lbs (1 ton).

a yard of soil carried up several steps to the top of the garage using 5 gallon pails helps one to recognize how much 2,000 lbs is (roughly the weight of a blue whale's heart).

here's 1/2 of the soil:


and most of it ended up in the new raised garden beds:





(no wonder he carried the buckets so quickly--they were empty.)

we also used some of the soil to re-fill all of the pots. he isn't a big fan of annuals. and i understand why. but for some reason, he's a fan of thompson nursery. i think this might have something to do with my favorite mother-in-law having a seasonal position there, leading to 50% discounts. thanks, nepotism!

here are some of those great plants:







(p.s. to the lady responsible for these nice annuals--i read the card for the goldilocks pictured above, and the tag said the plant is actually a perennial friendly from zone 3...)


the crabapple tree is in full bloom, doing much better than last year. however, wind as i type this probably means our enjoyment of the blooms is nearly over:



and, as always, hot bird action.

harris sparrow:


(they won't be here long--they're headed up to northern canada, Furthest-North-Nesting-Sparrow--one really needs all caps for that).

we've a pair of mourning doves:


and the orioles are back:





and busily maintaining the status quo, the cats thus remain unimpressed.

Spring MEGA Update

One better take advantage of spring in the week that it's here. April/May tends to be when most of the year's action takes place at citycabin.

First, a last act of winter involved covering a few bare walls.

Somebody had this tattooed:

From a soon-to-be-sister-in-law (you're going to have to get used to the sound of that, A.T.):

because I get my way once in awhile:

in remembrance of the former home:

and in honor of our new home, but an homage to an older one. My grandmother moved out of her childhood home this past summer. In addition to a number of wonderful home furnishings
and tools proudly displayed and utilized at citycabin


were some great postcards copyright, 1908.



Changing gears, the spring work has been advanced by the addition of a handy trailer. Gone are the days of folding down the backseat to push in 8' sections of lumber from trunk to dashboard.


problem(s):
1. desire, at least by 1/2 of the household, to grow stuff other than flowers
2. lots of rabbits, squirrels and shade

solution: the sunny, heat island, impervious surface of a garage top






Above are two 4'x6'x12" planter boxes. They should be the right height to be easy on one's back and also rabbit proof. The floors were tipped up and in soon after the photos were taken. Now all that's left is to do some strategic hole drilling for drainage and add soil. As soon as the temps are more consistent and the st. paul farmer's market rolls out more of the goods there will ideally be some veggie growth to photograph. Instead, it's time to be satisfied trying to grow grass over a season's worth of birdseed winterkill.

The trouble's mostly worth it. After a slow spring the past few days have offered a few never before seen visitors:

evolved, modestly-dressed squirrel

yellow-rumped warbler (which we didn't know until birdchick kindly helped with identification)

blackburnian warbler. Click on pick and zoom in to see a great Riddler's mask.

And, I know they're common and I came within six inches of hitting one with a golf ball on Sunday, but to wake up to a drake mallard swimming in your little backyard urban pond was much too fun.

He and his girlfriend took off before there was time for a nice photo.

It was before 7am today and the greater birdwatcher in the house excitedly pulled me out of bed. It was worth it.

Lastly, it's been awhile. Another jailbird sighting:

(back) into the wild

i'm going to totally ignore how long it's been since the last post. we've done some things--had a lot of art framed and matted (pictures forthcoming. i struggle with obscene amounts of reflection no matter where i try to take the photos), did some minorly epic oak tree trimming (oak is VERY HEAVY. that's why it's a HARDWOOD. we are geniuses), and small fixes here and there.

anyhow, it's spring.

the pond wintered fairly well. three mice lost their souls trying to cross the biggest body of water they'd probably ever seen. farewell, little Mouse Cortes.

and the guy loves to do things more than once. he calls this "fixing" while i call it "annoying". so, we dug up the pond yet again to re-level. i think we have it right this time.


and, as testament to the fortitude of carp across the globe, the goldfish lived through the winter. they were released back into their natural habitat of plastic vinyl tub today.


check that look of shock. lake's still a bit cold, little orange.



we're also planning another shade garden.

here it is, completely finished:



we'll throw these plants on the top, left in boxes and bags, of course.





and we're going to replace the bricks with old tires for full effect.

sometimes planting takes on proportions of danger, at least according to the box.

all epic. all. the. time.

i've really been meaning to update every month. looks like we didn't do much during december. hopefully this brand-spanking-freaktastic january blog will make up for it.

some people like to relax during vacations. not anybody living at this cabin. well, the female persuasion would appreciate chillaxin' time, but that was not to be. and to be honest, the 3.5 days of straight up standing-on-chairs-taping-electrical-paint extravaganza was more than worth it.

the living room before:

the living room had many issues, spanning from a totally crapola color scheme


to a ceiling falling apart


and very poorly done electrical outlets and vent.

i mean, ridiculous work preceded our moving here.

so, we fixed things in a few ways. since we're in no hurry to strip walls to the studs in order to re-sheetrock (what is known in my family as "some real shit work"), we instead texturized the walls with this great pre-tinted stuff known as 'manda mudd. check it:



the guy also practiced his audition routine for stomp:






and ceiling painting is totally the best and most fun thing to do



preceded by almost blowing my head off with the super-charged ceiling texture repair



but, finally, we conquered city cabin.

just to remind you, before:



and after:


and then there's the kitchen and accompanying hallway. an unstunning underwhelming use of some potentially cool space. here we re-painted the brick, more new outlets and covers, and new color in general. it was his idea for the blue, i think he credits mad men (which is, stylistically, a time period i envy in every way).

before:


(notice the little yellow helper above?)


during:



and after:
before:





during:


after:


and thanks again, swank, for cool old affordable stuff to tie things in together. the fact that it's a cat was a very small factor. really. really.

and lastly, two new light fixtures, one in the kitchen, one in the hallway, work off the same switch.

before:

(let me preface this by saying that we don't leave fixtures dangling from the ceiling. this might have been influenced by an early beer and a "let's get new fixtures!" decree.)



check the excellent taping job on this light:



after:

so, that's it. hours of grueling labor. a fair amount of trips to the hardware store. but i guess we did manage to have some fun over our winter break aside from digging the new digs: