Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Big House Patio and Hammock

This is the back yard patio area for the big house. The hammock is a purchase I made on a trip to Costa Rica. Yard furniture is picked up at at yard sales--odds and ends. You can't really see this, but in the background is a wall of mock-orange--sweet smell, no fruit. If I had the resources I put an adobe wall around the entire back property like homes in Mexico. It's fenced and locked and guarded by two great dogs, but it's the living indoors/outdoors aspect of an adobe enclosure that appeals to me. My property is not near heavily trafficked streets, so it's quiet. And the forested quality to the back yard makes you feel as if your living in the country, when, in fact, we are in the middle of it all. Country living in the heart of an urban neighborhood.

Today I plan on working in the garden in front of my deck on the cottage. Get out the blower and clean up all the messy downfall from the weekend rains. I'm ready to beautify the gazebo, clean everything up for party season.

9 comments:

pissed off patricia said...

Please put me on the invite list. I love your backyard and my own is my escape. Sadly I have people living all around me but there are times when there is silence everywhere and then my garden in my heaven. Just my plants, my flowers, my birds and me.

Utah Savage said...

I just blog rolled you dear. I hope it's OK. I have all the fixins for a morning martini, the right glasses and all. Part of the resson for my big lot is that this house was built in 1886. It amazes me that it's still standing. My cottage was an outbuilding for animals early on, then became a carriage house then a garage, then a work-shot the my cottage. I built the gezibo with my very own inexperienced hands. I did all the stone work, dug the sewer line, leveled the area for a private driveway in the back. All gated all lockable.

Unconventional Conventionist said...

I'm coming over. Make some cornbread, would ya?

Utah Savage said...

God, for you UC, anything.

Anonymous said...

Like a slice of eden or something. I'm really wishing hard for a tree filled yard these days.

Unknown said...

So lush and so soothing Utah. I wanna come over too!

We can relax in the gazebo with a martini in hand and wax poetic about how fucked up the world is m'dear. ;)

anita said...

well, i guess it's unanimous. everyone is heading out to visit utah!

i do like the wildness of your oasis. i'm trying to add a little wildness to mine, i've been doing research on indigenous wildflowers and stuff ... but it all ultimately gets a little time consuming. plus my house, being set, like POP's place, with "people all around" sometimes you have to tow the "landscaping" line, or maybe that's just me, the ultimate outsider, trying to fit in ... or at least the old-world northeastern type of landscaping which some people have worked quite lushly with their victorian beauties. i'm thinking about moving even further north, where the 'victorial beauties' are more affordable. but then i worry about what happens when i get too old to shovel the snow in the depths of winter and mow the lawn during heat waves.

i have a "friend" who, every time i tell him i mow my own lawn and shovel my own snow, is appalled. like, you need hire "people" to do those "tasks." fuck that i say. i LOVE mowing my lawn and i love shoveling my snow and i love getting on my hands and knees and spending the entire afternoon pulling out weeds. so very therapeutic!! spend 20 years living in tiny NYC apartment and you TOTALLY lose touch with nature. and making that acquaintance again is really wonderful. or, you can be like my friend, who goes out to the hamptons for the summer and plants little plots of "herbs" but for whom mowing the lawn is declasse.

i hate people sometimes. in case you haven't noticed.

Anonymous said...

I love Anita. I joked about not helping MathMan mow. I like to mow, too. Great thinking time as long as the bees leave me alone. And I miss shoveling snow no matter how much I may claim otherwise. Heck, I shoveled a lot of snow a day before I gave birth to Cupcake because I like to do that kind of physical work.

When does the party start?

Petrosexual said...

party? Party? PARTY? I'll bring the ribs!