Spring is here -- sort of...

When I got up yesterday morning it was raining. You can see the guesthouse roof water (on the left) spilling into our stream. But, an hour later, it was snowing. We ended up getting about an inch of so that stuck around all day. What's with this April weather?

How did we get our name?

We're building on Whidbey Island: "on whidbey"

There are three of us in our family: "fredley" -- Fran (fr), Ed (ed), and Bradley (ley)

What a difference a day makes...

Day 3 the guesthouse pathway gets a coating of crushed rock.

Guesthouse Garden

This is what the guesthouse garden looked like yesterday (Day 1).

Today, after moving trash, rocks, weeds, plants and soil it's changed a bit (Day 2).  Tomorrow I hope to gravel the pathways.  The stakes indicate the locations of screens.

Pathways

We now have a pathway to our front door! The berm that Annie is testing out will be planted soon. There is no longer an opening to access the covered porch from the south, but much more privacy and a sense of the porch being a "room".

There is now a "proper" trail to the stream, east of main living. Back under the living area you can see the beginnings of rock/landscape cloth installation. It's a dry area, where nothing will grow, so the rock covering will be neat, tidy and attractive.

Another Pile

Boulders for retaining and crushed rock for pathways.

Drainage

One of my favorite methods of handling water, pests and home maintenance is to put drain rock under the building overhangs. This allows access for easy window washing, painting, and other types of cleanup. I'm not a fan of landscape cloth in the garden but for this use I find it useful to keep the area weed and silt free.

Under the front entry path a snake-like catch basin for water running off the driveway is installed. With drain tile and drain rock the entire pathway becomes a catch basin. The drain tile has been wrapped with landscape cloth to keep it from silting up. The snake drainage ends at a true catch basin.