Sprouts, critter fence, and a compost area

Justin: Okay, so we have the critter fence up! It's not going to stop too many things if they really want in, but it should help a little bit. And besides, it's cute.

Also I got the compost area set up. I've never known what to do with that corner of the yard so we elected it to be the best place.

And yes, that's an owl. His name is Owldamort.

Our tomato plant is just about ready to be hung upside down.

Good News from the Homefront!

Stacey:  Hello everyone!  For someone who loves to write, I'm shockingly quiet on my own blogs.  Gotta love irony. Right now, life is very much focused on getting back into shape.  As Justin wrote, we are full swing with p90x and running and working hard in the yard.  We are exhausted and sound like 90 year olds when we stand up but we know this will all be worth it.  Already, we are feeling better mentally and are much less stressed.  I'm not sure if that's because of the stress-relieving properties of exercise or because we are so tired, but I'll take it either way.  My time at JDRF is wrapping up so we're trying to figure out what my next move is. I think I'm definitely becoming one of those people who need to "work to live" and not "live to work."  So it's a matter of finding company that doesn't want me to sign over my first-born in order to work there.
I'm horribly homesick and ready for a Missouri trip so I can catch up with friends and family.  Thankfully I get to see the folks and Lee & Family at the end of June.  A week at the beach that hopefully is still oil-free.....but as long as I get to see the world's cutest baby ever (JACKSON!), then I'll be alright. Another exciting reason for the beach vacation is that for the first time in 30 years, my mum is hepatitis C free!!!!!  She contracted it in 1980 and was diagnosed in 1984.  After several rounds on Interferon (a pretty nasty chemo-like drug), she's finally virus free!  While she has always worked her hardest to not let the disease rule her life, it's always been present in our family.  I haven't known my mum healthy since I was 7 years old and I'm looking forward to getting to know "Renewed Sue" as I'm calling her now. 
Of course, the big question is "what do you get the women who is now virus free"?  Lee Mackenzie and I were both excited to hear the news and then dumbfounded as to what to do next.  Any suggestions?

The End of May

Justin: What's the recap... Well, honestly we have had a lot going on here at the casa. We've torn down door frames preparing to arch them, bought a ceiling fan for the living room (which we have yet to put up due to having to wire a new box but should be done shortly), Stace has been very busy with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and I've been working more than the usual with Duke. We're very proud of the farming experiment we have going on... Today I started the "anti-critter fence" around it and also should be done with the compost area in the rear corner of the yard tomorrow. We both started the P90X fitness regimen and this is the end of the first week... Crazy stuff, that. Basically a 12 week bootcamp and IT. IS. NUTS. But you can't help but love it. We will probably have to replace our cool rug in the living room simply because I sweat so much. I'm not kidding. I understand the human body is 90% water anyway, however when I'm done you would think I was down to at least 50... It's just gross. I look like a drowned rat and I'm not even in a tub.
Attractive, yes? You're welcome.
And Stacey is a beautiful BEAST! Today she woke up, ran 5 miles with Sharon (who is our P90X guru as she did the whole 90 days last year) and then came home to round out her 6 day P90X workout with the Kenpo routine.
Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with me - I'm not a morning guy. That's when the burning ball comes out and everything gets all bright and stuff. Not my time. Makes me angry. BUT! I'm trying VERY hard to change that. So I'm working on a new sleep routine ( told you - lots going on) where I'm in bed by 10 and up by 6 and working out close to that for however long the routine takes. Part of me really likes this. The part that sits at a desk from 8am to 5pm really does not. I mean granted, I don't just sit there, luckily - I'm usually running around between the datacenter and wherever else, but man.. if I get some downtime? It's automatic sleepyface. Gah. ALSO - I'm working on the "Couch to 5K" running program I think I have mentioned before on top of it all. I'm more on the couch side at this moment but I'll get there.
I KNOW, RIGHT? We are really working it! I will say that we are VERY excited about our upcoming beach trip to hang out with Stace's family and then I have my Beartooth trip in July which has me WAY jazzed. Hopefully the P90X regimen plus the running routine will help my system get ready for the 60 miles at 12,000ft. Yeah, you read that right. A week at 11-12,000 feet. Just saying. Get ready for an epic tale.
I guess you can call the P90X + C25k my "Couch to 12Kft" routine...

Now where did I put my recovery drink??

Be well.

Our Not So Little Urban Gardening Experiment!

Justin: Stacey and I have tossed around the idea of putting a veggie garden together for quite a while so a couple weekends ago, and since I was on-call with nothing else to do but wait, we decided to delve head first into it. Again thank you everyone for the Lowe's gift cards over the years! Not only have they given us lively and lovely colors in and around our home, but recent bookshelves and now a very nice raised bed vegetable garden!

So our backyard is not very flat...It's not too bad, but we wanted the beds level so we had to dig out several yards of Carolina red clay and considering it was done with A shovel and A maul and it was 90 degrees, it took us a good while and was quite the effort. No, we didn't have any power equipment to dig with. We did however have the awesome Hitachi 18v drills and the circular saw that my father and father-in-law gave me a couple years ago. Anyway, three trips to Lowes, two days and several blisters later, TA-DA! A (roughly) 4x8 and a 4x4 bed. They are 4 landscape timbers deep, (15 or 16 timbers, I believe) which comes to roughly 15 inches deep and we're using about 10 inches of soil/compost/peat moss. We laid some weedscreen at the bottom and we had already dug well beneath the grass line. Hopefully that will keep us weed-free for quite a while.

We used bamboo stakes to define out 1'x1' plots.

What did we plant? A lot! We planted corn, red peppers, green peppers, carrots, red onions, lettuce, squash, green beans, broccoli, cucumbers and spinach! We also are starting an upside-down tomato plant that will hang on the plant hanger that you barely see on the left in the above photo.

Funny enough, our neighbor who had started a small cucumber and squash garden a while back, was watching us work. He and I had discussed renting a tiller to do various things around the yard several weeks ago and well, he went that afternoon and got one from his Grandfather. I told him as he was easily grinding up the ground that he was a cheater and that I'll be flipping him off for a while. His reply was that his wife had already told him that after seeing our raised beds, he'd be building some within the year.

As this post is a bit behind, we ALREADY have sproutings! I'll post those in the next day or so. Very exciting! Next project is a compost solution and an herb garden as paying so much for rosemary and cilantro simply ticks me off.

I'll also post some links to some sites that we used to reference and some others that just have some wonderful ideas regarding urban gardening in general.

Be well!

Photos 4.2010