Last time we talked I showed you the new patio. Yesterday Scott and Will finished everything out side except the two shelves Scott has to make for my garden shed so John, Jane and Sam came over to christen my completed patio and Bella came to help Otis celebrate also. We all enjoyed ourselves and I got so involved I forgot to get a picture for you.
Now I’ll show you what I have besides the patio. At the end of the patio is my “utility room” or laundry room. When I bought this place that was just a garbage shed and smelled it. All the cleaning we did could not make that a room anyone would want to walk into or to work in. I had to hold my breath when I went in to put in a load of washing and it made my skin crawl to walk into the room the floor was so caked with dirt, grim and spilled chemicals and the ceiling was covered in mold. Monday Scott and Will pulled everything out of there that was not nailed down. They disconnected the washing machine and the drier which turned out to be a good thing as the drier was not connected up correctly. It was blowing into the room instead of out the vent. The vent hose on the machine was too small for the exhaust pipe and was ripped so could not connect. All that hot air in there with the garbage was not good and the garbage cans did not have any cover so the smells just got worse.
They power washed the whole room and bleached the ceiling and got rid of the mold that had been there so long it had etched marks into the metal of the ceiling. Then he painted the washed floor to make that look good. And with new shelves and new garbage cans with covers I now have a great laundry room. This is the patio/car port. In the back you can see the door to the laundry room.

This is the back door that goes into the craft room. If in the future I need a ramp it will be made to this door so it can go into the car port/patio without cutting the patio in half and interfere with the hot water heater. across from the above steps is my tool rack. This keeps all my tall tools organized without taking up room in my laundry room or garden shed. going into the laundry room I now have this beautiful floor, no more dirty awful floor for me. And the ceiling is now clean and white. It is a small room so I could not show you the whole thing with one picture. The east wall has a wash tub with water, a washing machine now hooked up to the sewer as it should be thanks to Scott and a drier now blowing outside thanks to Scott. There is a small space beyond the drier but that will stay clear of “stuff” so Scott can get to the pipes if I have any problems. On the west wall is my new shelves. Beside these are the two new large garbage cans with covers. One for garbage and one for recycles. These must stay in the laundry room so the raccoons can not get to them. Raccoons make the rounds every night and even sometimes durning the day so all food must be kept locked up and inside somewhere.
On the other side of the house is my screened in porch. That too was all dirty and moldy. We have very high humidity here so mold is a constant problem and if you don’t keep up with it you have to power wash. It is not something you can wash off once it gets a good hold. So Scott and Will power washed this room and fixed the roof so I can now have furniture out there. It is a nice place to sit and enjoy the cool fall air but Otis can’t see outside and enjoy watching the people of the neighborhood go about their daily duties so we spend our time in the new patio. When Patty comes we often sit out here. This room is 20 feet long and you can sit at either end you want to depending on what you want to see facing south you see only the preserve. You feel as if you are were in a southern jungle. If you sit at the other end and face north you see the back yard of the three or four houses. It is still a very quiet peaceful view and makes this porch very private.
My garden is on this side of the house. Out the door from the porch you step down onto a small patio where I have put my herb tower. There is a table there also but I don’t use it, I like my new patio for sitting better. Also this patio has a fence but it does not go to the floor so I have to put a small fence below it so Otis could not jump down and head for the preserve. He would love to go hunting the animals in there but they would eat him up.So when he goes out he either has to be on a leach or stay in the patio or garden where Scott installed a small fence that seems to hold him in just fine. He is a good dog and tries to follow the rules but does need reminding once in a while so I don’t let him out without me.
This is the small patio with my tower. From this you go along the walk that Scott and Will made for me with a fence on one side to keep Otis in line and my pineapples along the other side.

And at the end of the walk is my garden. It is hard to see the small fence but it is there and Otis respects it and stays in the garden with me when I am out there working. When he decides he can get out then he will have to be on a leash or stay in the house. The garden is growing so great. I had ten grow boxes. Each box is made up of two parts, the lower held water and the top one held the soil and plants but because my land is slanted and I have animals that insist on jumping up on them they kept tipping over and I would have to replant my plants. So What I did was to separate them and drill holes in the bottom so they had good drainage too. Now I have 20 boxes and I have to water them every day that it does not rain and some days I water twice a day. This is my shed. It will hold all my garden supplies after Scott makes the two shelves, right now it holds only the large bags of things.soil and mulch. As you walk into my garden you are greeted with a box of basil, I use so much of this I decided to plant a whole box of it. Behind that are two boxes of broccoli. This first box is just a little larger than the second as the second one was one that got tipped over and I had to rescue those three plants and replant them. They really did great concideing to fall they took. The last box in that row is the green squash, zucchini. So far so good with those I just hope I don’t have too many plants in the box. if I do I will have to thin them out.The next row is has tomatoes, two boxes of lettuce and one of beets. The last box I just planted some seeds and don’t remember what I put in that box but will know this week when they come up. The beets are growing fast now and I will have a meal of beet greens this week and one next week. Then they should be thinned out enough to just let the beets get large enough. This gives you a better look at the lettuce and beets. I missed the green peppers but these are the next row, the strawberries. These are the ones we planted last spring and got a few berries from then, I’ll see how they do this next spring. The other boxes I have just planted some seeds yesterday and today. beyond that are the blueberries. This is the row of five blueberry bushes. They were not too happy about being moved from Patty’s house but they are coming around and starting to send out new growth. I hope to get some blueberries this spring but time will tell more. In the last row are my string beans. I thought they were bush beans but I know now that these are pole beans and there is not room for them to grow as tall as they need to so I may not get any beans from this planting. In the center of this garden is a large gardenia bush that was there for many years. The bush is looking happier every day. Before it was covered with weeds. I am hoping for lots of flowers on it this spring.
I guess that covers the out side. Next time I will try and show you the inside of the house. I am now trying to organize the craft room but that will take several months to get that done. Have a great day.