To The Surbiton Manor Born

  Our overgrown pet rock, sadly abandoned by its previous owners after it grew from a tiny pebble. Remember! When you take on the responsibility of caring for a pet rock, you have to love the boulder, too. Workers swarmed our house this week, replacing the sunken front walk and dead flower bed. We'd expected them in May or June, but they got a jump on things, and let us know Monday that they could start Wednesday. This was a bit of a shock and sparked a need to move about 3 yards of dirt that we'd invested in fairly unsuccessful (if you don't count flooding our already sunken sidewalk with ice in the winter) berms. Need the dirt to build up a flat space in the back yard. They'd hoped to finish by Friday. They worked all day Saturday, and will be coming back tomorrow (Monday). But they have been busy beavers. Now we get the opportunity to replant our front yard with a bee friendly mix of fescues & clover.  The weather was fabulous this weekend. It's nearly overwh

While the lights capping the many, many posts in the yard look nice - a pretty floating fairyland in the dark, it turns out that they are bad for insects that can help the garden .  “There’s no good light, period,” Owens [ Avalon Owens, a Rowland Fellow at Harvard University who studies fireflies and other insects] said. “And if you’re going to have one, have it on when you’re there, [and] turn it off when you’re gone.” And this isn't the only source of expert information that's led us to the conclusion that the lights have to go. Darn it. They were expensive and time consuming to install. But we need to do the right thing and remove them.

The weather in early March was basically too good to last, of course, and the weekend before last we paid for it with a heavy, wet snowstorm. On the positive side, it brought enough moisture to nearly get us out of draught. That's a big deal with spring planting on the way. The crazy early planted snow peas and arugula and kale were, I think it is safe to say, destroyed. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Bed with appropriately named snow peas in it... But other developments have moved along apace. The greenhouse is full of tomato, cherry tomato, sweet pepper & marigolds, all popped up and thriving. This year, I shall be ruthless. Note that there are two seeds in each container. The weak one (rather than in past years when I would try to plant them in another container & save them) will be...disposed of...[mwahahahaha...]. Hardscape work has begun. "Curb Appeal Summer" began this past weekend with a resurrection of the mailbox.  Old New We also signed up to