Reclaiming the Hell Strip and More

Whew. Let's see...

I had this great idea. I thought "hey, I'll pull up the slate in my hell strip and have a hell strip that's all cool like the one I linked here a few weeks ago. No biggie." Except it IS a biggie. It is a very biggie. The slate varies from 1' X1' to 4' X 3'. I had to have Chris's help. And Chris couldn't really do it easily, either.

So we pulled it all out. We put in 25 bags of topsoil, peat humus, and composted manure. And we planted and mulched. And I don't even have anything really awesome to show you guys for all of my work, either. Except a plant list and stuff. And this photo, which is of just some of the slate that we pulled out of two 6'X6' beds.

So...I'll put in some photos later. Meanwhile, here's what I planted where the slate used to be:

• Red tulips
• creme daffodils, yellow daffodils, and "old fashioned" daffodils from my Georgia neighbor's yard.
• blue flag iris from my old yard
• "Homestead" verbena -- scored from the rescue pile at Lowe's -- 18 plants, 17 in tiptop shape, for $3.
• "Champagne Bubbles" poppies
• "Blue Spruce" sedum
• "Bee Balm," a.k.a. Monarda didyma.

I also tidied beds out back and planted three varieties of blueberry, some rescue strawberries, and hellebores from my old yard. Then I mulched like nobody's business and now I'm in the public library looking like a vagrant and typing about it to you guys.

(Oh, did I mention I don't have internet at my house right now? Comcast is a sad, sad company with really poor customer service.)

Curtin Village

Hold My Calls

Originally uploaded by Athens Nikita

We lead lucky lives, most of the time. So, Saturday our plans were derailed by a bachelor party for a guy we don't know. Don't get me wrong -- he's an awesome guy. We're friendy now. But we didn't know him as of 2 p.m. on Saturday and by 7 p.m. we were at his post-bachelor hangout. Turns out one of his groomsmen is an old friends of my husband's and some other friends' and the mother-of-the-bride, who is a neighbor we hadn't met yet, connected the dots.

Anyway, the bride suggested a fishing spot to Chris. Chris really wants to fish, since we live in the fishing capital of Pennsylvania. I really want to be supportive, and spend some quality time exploring architecture.

Enter Curtin Village.

Chris got to fish in the gorgeous and tranquil Bald Eagle Creek, while I walked around and photographed darn near all of the Curtin Village historic ironworks. This site is really underrated, I think -- I'm used to historic sites that are sort of limping along, but this one is in pristine condition and open a surprisingly large amount of time during the summer.

Anyway, I played with my macro settings, goofed around with color saturation (since the sky was mostly a really lurid blue), and even tried a little action photography. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.


The photo stream at the bottom chronicles our adventures. Enjoy!