Warm Days and Cool Nights at Rancho Escargot -
Well, warmish days anyway, when the sun comes out between cloudbursts. This is, after all, Brittany. And even though we're teetering on the leading edge of summer it's still a very mild place.
Three months away and I return to find the wild and weedy things thriving better than ever at Rancho Escargot. Some of the brush reaching up to shoulder height I decided it was necessary to take action. Time to pull them out by the roots (again).
They're kind of pretty, in their own way, and they provide habitat for all kinds of creepy crawlies. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do... and that means pulling them up by the roots in preparation for taming the landscape with a "real" garden. None of this haphazard nature stuff.
But then new information appears and priorities change.
It seems the town will be laying a new sewer line in the street and we're going to be hooking up to it. That means they'll be excavating right at this corner of my garden, where the stone wall is at its most precarious.
It's a corner I've been planning to work on for a while but have been putting off. Now it's top priority. So that means clearing out all the brush behind it.
Nothing a strapping young fellow of 50 (51 in a few days) can't handle in a couple days of work. The corner in question is at the far right. At the left is a small section of wall that was plastered long ago. Just to the left of that, between it and the corner, I'll be taking the wall all the way down to the ground and building some steps from the street up to the garden.
Next step, clear out the stuff growing in the wall itself. The disassemble the wall to about 2 feet above street level. After that I will go back to the garden side and dig out some of the dirt from behind the wall, mounding it behind, and rebuild the wall, leaning slightly into the garden. This will be more stable and will look very nice.
Last problem, the telephone pole at the corner is completely rotted out and is now leaning on my wall for support. I need to call the phone company and get them to repair it. They really should put the lines underground. They did that in most of the neighborhood but skipped our little corner for some reason.
I'll add to this blog post as I get farther with the work.
Well, warmish days anyway, when the sun comes out between cloudbursts. This is, after all, Brittany. And even though we're teetering on the leading edge of summer it's still a very mild place.
But then new information appears and priorities change.
It seems the town will be laying a new sewer line in the street and we're going to be hooking up to it. That means they'll be excavating right at this corner of my garden, where the stone wall is at its most precarious.
Next step, clear out the stuff growing in the wall itself. The disassemble the wall to about 2 feet above street level. After that I will go back to the garden side and dig out some of the dirt from behind the wall, mounding it behind, and rebuild the wall, leaning slightly into the garden. This will be more stable and will look very nice.
Last problem, the telephone pole at the corner is completely rotted out and is now leaning on my wall for support. I need to call the phone company and get them to repair it. They really should put the lines underground. They did that in most of the neighborhood but skipped our little corner for some reason.
I'll add to this blog post as I get farther with the work.
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