Teaser 2

This first photo is for Marie at http://heimdalhagen.blogspot.com/ in Norway. I know she likes dogs so I thought I'd share a shot of my labradoodle (yellow lab crossed with standard poodle) that I took about an hour ago. Calie the wonder-doodle was overjoyed this morning when we woke up and found something new outside.

Ah ha, this is what happens when you brag on www.blotanical.com, GardenJoy4Me sends you snow for daring to brag about your crocus blooms. I have a sneaking suspicion that flowergardengirl (Anna) had a hand in it too because she wanted me to get off that beach and back to posting. Well Anna, the beach was freezing cold, silly me, it is still February! We barely stood there for a minute and then went back inside.

So this morning I woke up to find the weather guesserologists were at it again. The prediction was 3-6 inches of snow in New York city and areas north and west. 1-3 inches were forecast for areas south and east of the city and last I checked Long Island is east of New York City. Right now there are 4-5 inches on my picnic tables out back and it's still falling.

The good news? I'll be inside much of the day and can get to work on my post about fences. Now to forewarn all of you, part of that post will be a rant on how I feel about these new white vinyl fences. Hopefully I don't hurt too many feelings, I too was intrigued when they first came on the market but oh my, I just can't stand them anymore.

The photo above shows my own garden shed. It's just darling, the only problem is it's got mice in it. I wouldn't mind so much if they wore a bell around their neck and I could hear them before they darted in front of me. Instead, I bang on the door for a minute before opening it in hopes they all run and hide (I even yell out loud for them to do exactly that).

Look at that hideous white vinyl fence behind my lovely country shed. Come on, we live in an area with 1 acre minimum zoning, most of the properties are heavily treed. Yes, we are a suburb of New York City but it looks pretty countrified around here. What could be more unnatural than a huge expanse of white plastic? This fence runs for 400', turns for 100' and runs 400' more. To make matters worse, these people put the fence up along with the house next to them who put the exact same fence up. I look out of my bedroom window and see two yards fenced in with this incredibly fake looking product.

Take one more look, see that green mold growing on the fence? The big selling point here is that these fences are maintenance free. Ah ha, instead of painting them you have to spray them with something to remove the mold.

This last photo shows an uninspiring shot of my compost area. I wasted an hour looking for a good photo of this area taken during summer months. It's quite lovely then so I don't know why I can't find a photo.

A number of years ago I was on one of my walks when I saw a landscaping company ripping these pier pilings out of a beautiful landscaped home. It was the same company who mowed our lawn at the time so I asked what they were doing. A new home owner had moved in and the wanted all those pier pilings removed and replaced with stone. I asked what was going to happen to the pier pilings and was told that a number of truck loads had already been hauled off to the dump. WHAT!!! The last truck load was dumped at my house instead, I wish I had gotten the others too.

We rolled those pilings to the back corner, dug a shallow trench with our handy Mantis tiller and popped those babies in. My daughters and their friends played countless hours back there in their pirate fort/hogwarts castle/alien outpost and what ever else. It turned out to be a great "fence" for decorative purposes by hiding my compost heap.

By the way, you can see the 6' stockade wooden fence we installed 11 years ago, it's still in great condition and has never needed a single minute of maintenance. All the way in the right corner you'll see a tiny section of that white vinyl fence. Well, to call it "white" isn't fair, it's pretty dingy if you ask me.

Back in a bit, time for breakfast and then I'll be working on the fence post.