SHAKIN’ BACON ON THE SOUTH FORTY

Sometimes designs outlive their usefulness and utility which happened to be the case of the collapse of the arbor at the top of the stairs leading to the Chauffeur’s Quarters. The former arbor was a combo meal deal of manzanita and a live grape vine and when it fell it fell – the grapevine snapped so everything had to be removed and redesigned. The grapevine root itself survived and we intend that when it decides, it will resprout up and over the new arbor. When it does, we are ready with a new and improved arbor along with a more substantial handrailing. Here are the first steps with Joshua pretending to be the new yet-to-be-installed rebar arbor going in two directions.

Reminiscent of the old amebic manzanita railing (which, in all honesty, I adored but it was beginning to diminish in structural integrity so it represented a safety issue in the making), Joshua resurrected and repurposed a portion of that manzanita to form the lowermost portion of the new handrailing.

Joshua added yet another repurposed piece of the original manzanita handrailing to the top of the new rail just under the simple rebar arbor. We fervently intend that the original grapevine will come back but in the meantime, we are jonesing to shop for a fairly mature climbing rose – maybe lavender or a coat of many colours – that can ‘pretty it up’ in the short term. As is, the arch is bland bland but we know that in short order mother nature will conceal all but the beautiful newness. Great, creative rework senor Ludwig and thank you.

I simply couldn’t stand seeing those bare arches so back we went to Verde River Growers where Hunter helped us find a Hall’s honeysuckle that our honeybee babies will love as well as a new rose, sunbelt plum perfect, in honor of all this renovation of the ‘south forty’.

While we are focusing on what I call the ‘south forty’ (meaning the area outside the back door leading to the Chauffeur’s Quarters), we continued attempts that began last month based on recommendations by guests, the Petersons, to encourage this area to fulfill its potential of lush and resplendent foliage. The captain accompanied me to Verde River Growers and with enviable shopping alacrity (in and out in 15 minutes) we selected 96 ground cover babies and began grass eradication and planting. We will overseed with dichondra and have dispatched many dirt-digging angels in the direction of supporting these babies in prospering and doing their job of ‘covering the ground.’