Life Transplanet

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…well, at least that we’ve been waiting for… the completion (nearly so) of our latest rental project. So, I love to look and compare all the work we put in since we bought it. When you are in the midst of it all, you never think it will look good, but somehow it does! I love these before and after pictures…And, we made our deadline of finishing up by September 1! Now…we just need a tenant…

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After -the fridge and stove will be delivered from Hispano Appliances tomorrow probably

Bedroom before

Bedroom after-I love nice wood floors!

Bathroom before -green and yellow? Really?

I think the bathroom is the most dramatic change

Last night I went to one of Cassie’s work events where they were presenting the results of some surveys and other projects like Photovoice that she had been working on related to youth access to tobacco in the Latino community. It was really interesting and I always feel like there needs to be more done to help the next generation not fall for the tobacco industry’s tactics to get youth hooked. Because let’s face it, if no kids ever started, they’d be out of business.

Cassie with some people involved in the project

Cassie was the MC and helped with the introductions, welcome and closing. They had a lot of interesting data and ideas where to go from here regarding policies, like for example requiring a license to sell tobacco, not allowing children under 18 to sell, not selling flavored or loose tobacco singles, and advertising restrictions. They also had some interesting results about why people don’t view tobacco as a crisis or urgent issue even though it clearly is.

Cassie at the podium

Overall, it was an interesting and different Wednesday night from the norm. Good job, Cassie!

P.S. They had enchiladas! Yum

I love Bike to Work Day. I think it is one of the best events. It encourages alternative transportation to get us out of our cars and other oil-powered vehicles, it is a fun exercise, and it connects your work life with your personal life. In the Greeley area, on a warm Wednesday in June there are a variety of breakfast stations set up all around town. You can go to one, or all of them.

Flyer of Locations

Britton and I live on the outskirts of town a little bit, so there were no stations on my way to work. So I arranged with one of my co-workers to meet up at the downtown one. It is about 2-3 miles from home, so not too bad. We had free bagels from Einstein’s Bagels and coffee, grabbed a free frisbee and were on our way to work.

With some co-workers who rode today

Britton would have liked riding to work, but since he works in Longmont, it’s a much harder ride (45 miles) with a freeway in between! I do need to start riding to work more since I only live about 2 miles away. The summer that we had really high gas prices, I was riding about 4 times a week! Price really does influence people’s behavior!

A couple of weeks ago we were commenting about our neighbor’s yard and how it was such a shame for all of those plants to be so neglected. You see, she has a non-traditional yard with lots of plants and flowers instead of just grass, but unfortunately she has let the house go into foreclosure and no longer lives there.

The house in question with the ‘mow-it-down’ landscaper’s truck

Then Britton and I were working in the backyard and Britton let out a gasp as he walked through the gate to the front yard and saw someone MOWING down all the beautiful irises, poppies, mums, alliums, roses, lavender and so much more. So we dropped everything we were working on and ran over to the landscaper. “Please! Don’t mow these down, or if you are going to, just let us take some plants out first!”

So he said he would hold off on mowing the front side area while we collected the plants. We got as much as we could in one trip. He saw we were still trying to get more plants when he was ready to do that side, so he said he would just leave it for a while and come back in a few days. A few days later he still hadn’t returned which was good for us, but we noticed a sign on her house that said “City Violation: Noxious Weeds -Whole Yard”. We were just amazed. No wonder people think we are crazy having chickens if having roses and irises instead of grass constitutes “noxious weeds”.

Some of the plants we saved from being mowed down

So, anyway, this transplanting from one yard to the other became quite a project. We were thinking of doing something new with the front area anyhow. We mostly spend our time in the backyard with the chickens, greenhouse and vegetable and flower gardens, but we took the hint and decided this was the push we needed to start working on it. (How can you say no to free plants!?) Here you can see some of what it took, just to take out the old stuff! (Plus you know it’s summer when the ice cream truck drives by!   )

This is the before and after. We are still hoping to fill it in with more wild flowers and other plants so there is less dirt seen but we think it looks pretty good to start!

Front area before with one of the plants and Schnoodle

Front facing the other direction after a ton of work (with Schnoodle and Kitty too!)

Now that it’s summer (or feels like it), that means yard work. Mostly for Britton, but I am very good at foreman activities like pointing and picking out spots where things should be planted, removed, etc. Basically, I just stand there while he works. I am always two projects down the line while Britton is like, “Wait! Slow down. Let me get this one done first!” I got this Fortune Cookie fortune the other day and while it amused me, I don’t think it was as funny to Britton…

Anyway, the next project I found was another great fruit tree at Home Depot the other day. A Fruit Cocktail tree! It is a three-in-one tree: nectarines, plums and apricots! How cool is that?! They grafted them together to be space-saving for smaller yards like ours.

So, then we proceeded to find a place for the new tree. We had just the place…where an old tree had died. I think we had pruned it back too far and then it split in two. It wasn’t coming up with any leaves and it was really dry and crunchy, so it needed removed anyway. But it was quite the project.

First Britton had to saw the old tree by hand which wasn’t too bad, but still took some time. Then we (by we I mean he) had to remove the stump by spading all the roots in the vicinity. I, meanwhile, photo documented…

Britton working on the stump, with the rest of the tree to the right

The stump with the rest of the tree behind it

Finally, we got it all out and just needed to plant the Fruit Cocktail tree. Voila!

New Fruit Cocktail Tree

Overall, it was a nice weekend. We spent some time with our niece and worked on the rentals a little bit. We also rode our bikes to my parents’ house and planted a few seeds in the garden. It really feels like summer with temps in the 80s and lots of sun. I love it!