How It's Going: Trying Harder

Another weekend is at an end.  Boy has it been windy!  I'm getting a lot tired of the wind but it's forecast to linger around here for at least another two days, so I guess I have to live with it.   We spent Saturday and Sunday working on Castle Aaargh again.

There I am,  raking mortar out of the joints between the stones.

  Whooo boy, the temperatures were really a lot different this weekend, highs in the 50's and with the windchill factored in, it adds up to brrrrrrrr at times.  Last weekend we were working in temperatures near 80 degrees in our shirt sleeves and straw hats.  What a difference 30 degrees makes.  But, it's October, and well, what do we expect?  It could be worse, it could be snowing.

I still haven't done a thing with the gardens yet, either.  Carl said if we get enough snow to bury it all, it won't make a difference, we won't see the mess until Spring.  Still, I'd like to take care of some of it before Winter.  I thought I'd take a few pictures this afternoon when I went on a little break from the rock work.

The miscanthus is so showy this time of year, amazing how it lights up any area it's planted in.  The trumpet vine has finally stopped flowering, but is now showing off it's lovely fall foliage colors.  Trumpet vine is sort of invasive here, it sprouts like a sumac from the roots at rather long distances from the mother plant.  I guess 'invasive' isn't really the right word for it, at least in our garden, maybe I should use the adjective 'adventurous' because it does love to travel a little bit.  The flowers it provides all season long are worth it, though.  I know if the hummingbirds had a vote, it would definitely be a keeper.

The zinnias gave up for the most part, but the Inca marigolds are still going strong.  I can't bring myself to pull them out, even if I had the time, at least not yet.  And look at the Leaning Tower of Hyacinth Beans...the west wind has been so strong it has nearly tipped the trellis over. 

The nasturtiums over on the Pachyberm are a delight this year.  I started these from seed in April and had originally planted them in the lightshade planters that sit in the driveway.  As the summer wore on, they were getting much too big for the pots, so I dug them out and wandered around the yard with the plants in my hands, wondering what I should do with them until I came to a bald patch between the big rocks on the Pachyberm and just plunked them in.  They didn't look too happy about this unceremonious treatment at first and I thought they were goners, but all of a sudden they perked up and the rest is as they say, history.

It appears nasturtiums are fond of rocks, too.

Next year, I think I'll try some of the other colors they have come up with.  I liked the way the nasturtiums grew up between the rocks.  And I really enjoyed their fruity fragrance, too.

Salvia 'Victoria' is a continual favorite of mine.  Love the blues.  (And no, the Japanese White Pine in the background is not dying, that's the normal fall needle drop this time of year.) 

My Wave petunias are also having a good time on the hill yet.  Look how the trees in the woods down the road are almost bare in places.  There's no mistaking Fall is here.

 I just don't have the heart to pull any of these out yet.  I'll be cussing myself out once the temperatures drop to freezing and I know I'll wish I'd done something sooner.  I go through this every year, though; trying to preserve the color as long as possible. 

I know my favorite saying is, "If you can't see it from the road it's ok," at least in reference to Aaargh and the stone work, but this is one garden that can be seen from the road.  It's still looking pretty good, but a bit tired, too.

The only mums I have are some I bought three years ago to stick in the garden for a late season wedding.  I bought them in tiny pots for a few bucks and after the wedding stuck them in the ground really late in the season.  I was amazed when they survived and it's a pleasure to see them every fall.

But anyway, my break is over, let's get back to the stones again:

Yippee!  We have some more sills in for the windows!  Those sills drove Carl's perfectionism right into orbit.  Who had the bright idea to put ten windows in this thing?  Oh, yeah, that was me...but anyway, we have seven in place and only three more to go.  We usually cut stone for only one course all the way around the building and then mortar them in.  The reason we don't cut more than one course high is because you have to allow for the mortar joint and because it's really difficult to remember which rock goes where when you have a stack of stones to unpile to get to the one on the bottom.  It's sort of like frosting a layer cake; you don't want to put all the layers together without frosting!  (See, no wonder I'm a big girl, everything reminds me of food.)

 On Saturday afternoon we had Joel's help again (it goes SO much faster when he's here mixing mortar for us) and then Ann and Jessie stopped in to help, too.  Then things were really hopping.

On Saturday, Joel had to leave just before sunset to go sit out in the woods and scare people.  Yes, that's right, our son volunteers to scare the bajeebas out of people for charity at a 'haunted house' in Green Bay. Isn't that nice of him?  He sits out in the woods with some other scary props and when unsuspecting people come down the trail, he does his best to terrify them.  (Hey, in all fairness, he's only giving the people what they paid for.)  I can attest to the fact that he's scary, all right; last year Carl and I and Ann and her family went on the tour one night and even though I knew the well over six foot tall, big, black-garbed hooded 'thing' with the red eyes silently standing next to the trail was Joel  (I sewed his costume) he's still scary!  He said they had 1,300 people go through on Saturday night.  That's a lot of money for charity, good for them!

But anyway, back to the mortar again (can you tell I get distracted easily?)  With Joel almost continuously mixing mortar, Carl setting the stones, Ann and Jessie filling in the gap in the middle with rubble and me doing the raking out and finishing of the joints, we made excellent progress despite the cold wind and dropping temperatures on Saturday afternoon.  The mortar was setting up ridiculously fast, too, since the air is so dry out.  We were all freezing by the time the sun set.

Ah, togetherness, Carl and I, side by side, mortaring away.

Here Carl is using the string anchored to the middle of the floor and his trusty level as aids to getting the right slant on the sill he's mortaring in. 

Deep breaths, Carl, it will be fine.  You're doing great.  (Those sills are giving him more gray hair, I swear!) 

 On Sunday afternoon, Ann came back over again to play.  (Isn't she something, she calls this 'playing' any time she comes over to help.  I'm not complaining.....hey, I'm glad I can provide the entertainment!)  Jessie and Cameron were along too, and joined in on the 'fun'.  Jessie was smoothing out the mortar and Carl put Cameron to work cutting more stone.  No idle hands around here.

Well, except for me.....Ahem, maybe I could get back to work?  There I am, standing around having a good time while Ann and Carl are hard at work.

So that's our progress for the weekend.  Carl might be able to take a few more hours of vacation here and there if he gets caught up at work.  It's all a race against Mother Nature at this point.  And we have to keep moving.

No time for lollygagging.

Ahem.