Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The posts are complete!

Hopefully this weekend we will begin building the fence panels. It looks so good. I can't wait to have a fenced yard to enjoy. Other than that we are still plugging away at patching up a few unfinished small items. The house is really coming together. I love it. I couldn't have found a better hobbie to put my time and energy into.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

One Crazy Neighbor

How depressing- It's already May 20th and I've only had one other post. This weekend we are going to finish installing the posts in the yard as well as begin constructing our panels.

This is very interesting... Last Spring was our first in our house. I had met this woman who lives on a different block that was thrilled that we purchased the house/ was happy to see us planting trees and doing work etc. I spoke with this woman about possibly volunteering for random things around NE Minneapolis just to give back to the community. She seemed pretty nice.

A few weeks after meeting her we began getting sited for different things around the exterior of our house from the city. They were dumb things like repairing or tearing down our dumpy old fence, clearing brush out of the back of our garage. We were repairing and doing all of this landscaping work to a house that hadn't been touched in how long, and here they are threatening to fine us for piddly stuff that is going to get taken care of any how. We were under the impression that the city has just been driving around and fining people. Well, I had my suspicions.

Once the fence was removed the woman walked her dog past the house again and was so happy that the fence had been removed. Later that day Quentin began putting the posts in. We are putting 6 foot posts in and cutting them down to 4 feet but need to make sure everything is level. Being a corner lot gives you a lot of restrictions. Around 8:30pm me and some friends are having dinner- literally eating dinner. I have a full plate of food in my hand. Someone starts banging on the back door. I open it- dogs are going nuts- friends are a little freaked out. There she is with her dog in the darkness at my back door. "can I help you". She said she just wanted to make sure that we knew the fence was way too high and we better take care of it before the city comes around. I kindly but firmly told her that we were well aware of the laws and thank you for your concern. I shut the door in her face while she began muttering something else. RUDE! She could see us having dinner through the windows and felt the need to interrupt as well as knock on my back door. WOW!

A few days later I receive a note on my garbage can that is telling me to water the trees in the front boulevard. Somebody (this neighbor) took the time to walk all the way home, write a note and tape it to my garbage can. How malicious. I have put in so much time to my yard and am very knowledgable when it comes to plants, especially on regular watering schedules and keeping them alive. This woman doesn't even live on my friggen block. The best part is that the 2000, and the 2100 block is full of shit hole dumps and this woman is out for me. She better pray that I don't find out where she is living. I will be outside of her home with a clipboard doing preliminary work for the city.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Our progress

Sorry for my lack of posts, yet again. We have been finishing up some projects and I've been a bad blogger. Here are my weekend updates:

I am still working on the front patio. I've been stripping all of the cracked paint off of the windows with a heat gun, sanding, priming and painting with a white gloss. I am almost done. It looks very nice and clean.
Windows

I have also added 14 new plants over the weekend to my landscape design. It looks really great! I spent about $200 which is not so great, but it really pays off. I went to Gerten's. The reason I love Gertens is that all of their plants and shrubs are guaranteed for a year. I returned 5 blanket flower and didn't have an issue. Tangle Town only offers a year on their shrubs. It's worth the drive. Here is the right side of my front steps. Just 13 more plants to go before it's complete!
Front landscaping

And last but not least- an update on Quentin's project. We've got about half of the posts in the ground. The rest will be in soon we are hoping. At lease you get a good idea of where the fence is going to be.
Fence posts