Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Auckland, New Zealand, where Brad treks.

Brad's Adventure!

SeaTac Departure

Check out his new shirt from Wander on Whidbey

Brad departs for New Zealand tomorrow for a five-month hike of the Te Araroa Trail. The missing-of-Brad has already started and he's still in Seattle. If you want to follow Brad's adventure see Brad's Blog or Fran's Blog as they follow Brad on the Te Araroa Trail from the north tip of New Zealand to the south tip. An adventure that will unfold over the next five months (mid November to mid April).

Tater Tot and Sushi Moto

We've had a sad kitty month. Both of Brad's much-loved kitties have died recently. Toter Tot of old age and Sushi Moto of Cancer. Goodbye sweet kitties.

Benton At Six Months

Benton is growing up. At 35 lbs. he's the perfect size and we're hoping he will stop growing, RIGHT NOW. He's a cutie and we're loving him most of the time. Every now and then though his puppy antics are trying, but mostly he's super.

Where are we?

It's amazing how the foliage is almost hiding our buildings from the east. As we look out our windows, towards the east, it doesn't seem like we are so hidden. Yet, from the neighbor's backyard, our screening is very effective.

Benton Forces our Hand

Although we didn't want to fence our property, we're doing it. Our outdoor/indoor life with all the doors wide open all summer long got us to thinking about our new pup. At some point he could be trained to stay within our property borders, but for now, he's still an unreliable puppy.

We're putting up a wire fence that, through the years, will be smothered in foliage making it invisible. For now we can see it, but barely.

Worker Bees!

Fredley's two fence builders -- Mr. Ed and the Brad Guy.

Screen

I failed to post pictures of our finished screens. With the foilage filling in it's almost impossible to see them in some places. What we love is more privacy in our bed/bath and loosing the view of the neighbor's storage area. Plus, the metal roofing we used on the screens (matching the siding of the mainliving building), extends the architecture into the garden, enhancing both the buildings and the outdoor spaces.

Recycled Roofing Becomes the Perfect Screen

Our new screen makes use of the same recycled roofing we used to side our main living building. It will be capped with black flashing to give it a finished, refined look. Although we're liking the open feeling of our neighborhood, for this part of our garden we needed to screen away the neighbor's unsightly storage and provide bathroom privacy. This 40 feet of screening does the job.

Even the back side looks good, but doesn't really need to since it faces the neighbor's storage area and propane tank.

The close proximity of the neighbor's studio which is nonconforming being only 1 foot from our property line is one of the reasons we needed to screen this section of our property.

Moving our New Screen Along Toward Finished...

Some familar faces are back on the Fredley project -- much missed and very welcomed back -- working on our new screen.

Travis

Erin

Brad (dbBrad)

A Privacy Need

We've long intended to build a screen between a studio on our neighbor's property to the north and our guesthouse building. Finally we're getting around to doing that project. Between storage on the back of the studio and their propane tank, it is not a very attractive scene. Further, our bath windows look that way so for privacy this 40' screen is critical.

Rain, rain and more rain.

We've been having enough rain to think about building an ark. The land on Whidbey is completely saturated with puddles everywhere; ditches full; catch basins overflowing; wetlands, creeks and lakes high; and people growing webbed feet. Fortunately, our built pond and wetland are handling our roof and site water beautifully. The pond is draining into the wetland, as planned, and the wetland is filling, with about a foot of capacity yet to go. It appears we've provided for more than adequate overflow. If this storm doesn't fill it to capacity, it's hard to imagine what would. Yesterday afternoon, after it stopped raining, the wetland showed no signs of water on the surface after about 2 hours so the absorption is rapid.

dbBrad our design builder and I worked together on this project, and two other storm water projects in Greenbank.