Making Progress...

We've been a little busy around here this Spring/Summer!  Our big mud puddle we had all winter and early Spring is starting to look like real landscaping!  It has been a lot of hard work, but we're pretty happy with the results.

It all started with a new concrete pathway leading from the front porch to the driveway.  From there, Joe (and Gabi!) built the rock wall that wraps from the sidewalk all the way around to the back of the house.  We collected lots of rocks near our house and also used some left over from our fireplace and porch columns.

We also lined the entire driveway with rocks and leveled out some of the sloping areas.  I don't know how many tons of rocks we used, but I'm sure it would have cost a small fortune if we would have had to buy them!  We also made a 4 foot apron all the way around our house with large rocks and then filled in with smaller rocks.  You can kinda see it in the picture below up around the house.  This will help keep moisture away from our foundation system.

The best investment we made was to have a sprinkler system installed!  It waters all the flowers above the rock wall, all the trees, the raised gardens, and it will eventually water the sod in the back. 


I planted somewhere between 200-300 perrenials in the area above the rock wall and to the left of the sidewalk.  Most of the ones in front I had started from seed in the greenhouse 2 winters ago and they grew in Joyce's garden last summer.  This Spring, I dug them all up and transplanted them over here.  They are doing well even though my soil isn't the greatest quality.  I started some others from seed in the greenhouse just this past winter and even though they're little, they're doing great.  I put them mostly on the side of the house.  I just got done putting down the mulch yesterday.

We still have a long ways to go with our grass in the front.  Since it has been such a hot, dry summer, I haven't had much luck getting native dryland grass seed to grow.  We have more weeds than we know what to do with.  In the backyard, we plan to put in sod, but have decided to wait until the weather cools down.  Sod needs a lot of water and the conservationist in me has trouble dumping thousands of gallons of water on green grass in the middle of a dryland prairie during a hot hot summer.  The girls are getting used to playing in the dirt and weeds anyways!  Ha!

On the other side of the house, we planted 2 pear trees, 2 apple trees, and a cherry tree.  There is also a birch tree up near the front of the house and a big blue spruce tree out in the yard.


Apple & Pear Trees with raised gardens.

Maya with the blue spruce tree. (Sorry blogger won't let me rotate my photos tonight.)  :-(

 Joe built me 3 raised gardens using old railroad ties for Mother's Day.  I've got 50 strawberry plants growing in the back two and vegetables growing in the front one.  I know they're hard to see, but the girls and I painted rocks to use as row markers for all the different plants.  They turned out really cute!

Climbing rose bush on the side of the house.

We mulched under the play set and sandbox so once we do get sod, we won't have to mow (or water) this area.

My next big project is to lay flat rocks as stepping stones from the concrete sidewalk through the flower garden all the way to the back of the house.  I've gotten about 6 feet so far.  The rest of the rocks I've collected so far are just scattered about the garden right now.  We will eventually need to go on another rock collecting outing for flat rocks!

The girls and I made some of our own stepping stones to add to the path.  I imprinted a few of them with flowers, I put the JH brand in one, the girls put their handprints in and decorated one apiece, and we also convinced Jackson and Rocky to allow us to imprint their paws.  :)  The girls thought that was great fun.  The pets...not so much.

Gabi's on top, Maya's on bottom.

Sweet Jackson dog's BIG paw print...so glad I got this before he left us. :(

And even though this technically isn't our yard/landscaping, we definitely have the best sprinkler ever just across the fence!

Thanks for checking in on our progress!

I'm Back.... ;o)

Oops...sorry about that long absence!  I've been neglecting this blog worse than Gabi & Maya's!  Now that school is out for the summer, I'll start putting some photos on here of our house progress and all of the things we've been loving while living in Wyoming.  Here are a few recent ones from this Spring that will get you started...



Baby antelope twins...Joe took this one morning while driving to work. 
(Antelope are some of the ugliest animals in my opinion, but antelope fawns are pretty cute.)

Some of the calves outside our backyard and Dave's sprinklers in the background.  We've enjoyed being so close to the cows and calves this Spring (but not those noisy bulls!) 

Don & Phyllis had a wild turkey sitting on a nest of 9 eggs in their yard for almost a month!  Those turkey eggs hatched the morning of Maya's birthday and we barely made it over in time to see all 9 baby turkeys waddling away behind their mama.  Maya doesn't think it is very funny that she shares a birthday with all the turkeys...we told her that makes her a little turkey!  You can kinda see all the babies in this picture...look closely!

Beautiful double rainbow to the East of our house after the passing storm.



Heated by the Sun

Yesterday at 10:00am it was -5 outside with about 12" of snow on the ground.  Hello winter.  This is by far the coldest it has been since moving into our new house, so I was curious to see how the solar hot water panels were doing.  To my surprise the water inside the tubes was 157 degrees!  That same water heats the glycol that runs through our radiant floor heating system and keeps our house a toasty 72 degrees.  Add to that the passive solar design and we have a free heating system.  We pretty much will never pay a dime for heating our home.  The sun does it for us.  Best invention ever.

We received our first electricity bill since moving in.  We used half as much energy to run this 2500 square foot house than we did our 1000 square foot house in Golden this time of year.  We're planning on installing solar photovoltaic (electricity) panels when the ground thaws in the Spring that will eventually drop our bill to $0 and possibly even make us money from the electric company.  Since Rocky Mountain Power takes their customers for granted (and is a sorry excuse for a public utility company), I cannot wait for that day!

The house is coming along quite nicely.  We even have pictures hung on the walls and are definitely feeling settled in.  We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, so we're excited to have a house full of family!  Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Tara

Home Sweet Home!!

We have finally moved into our new home and couldn't be more excited about how it turned out!

Our front porch -- newly decorated for fall with home grown corn stalks, pumpkins, and straw!

We still need to put in a pathway from the driveway to the front porch and add a bunch of rocks to the terraced yard...we will have our work cut out for us with the landscaping!  We plan to plant native grasses and such up to the terraced part and then put in a bunch of perennials above the rocks.  You can also see one of the water barrels we installed.  It rained last Friday and Saturday and both of our water barrels filled up in less than 30 minutes.  We plan on installing a couple more next Spring.

Back patio

The solar panels for the hot water are going in this week.  The mounting racks are up and the first set of tubes have been installed.

Stone fireplace with wood burning stove.  That thing puts out the heat!  I just kinda threw my knick knacks onto those shelves, so I definitely need to de-clutter. :)

Kitchen area -- the girls have loved sitting up high to eat and color at the island.  We still need to add knobs to a lot of the cabinets.

Hutch

Our new Sticks table ... see post below. :)

The floor turned out great!  I think we'll like it even better when they get the solar hot water set up and we can actually turn on the radiant heat.  Our only heat source the last week has been the fireplace, but the house has stayed surprisingly warm!  Since it is a passive solar design, all of the heat collected through the windows from the sun is stored in the floors and released at night.

Entry way

Girls' Bathroom -- they love their new tub! :)

The best part!  The view at sunset out our back windows!

Full moon setting this morning over the mountains.

We are so thankful that our house is done and we can finally start to feel settled in.  There is still lots of unpacking, decorating, and organizing to do, but it will all come with time.  We are still in amazement over how much space we have...this is a 1000 square foot upgrade from any other home Joe & I have shared.  All of my boxes are unpacked and I still have empty closets and cabinets...amazing.

Happy Fall!  As you can tell by the two pictures above, it has been beautiful here.

Thanks for checking in on us and feel free to come visit any time!!

Sticks Table

Joe & I have wanted a table from Sticks (a Des Moines-based company) for a really long time....and our wish finally came true!  We spent lots of time while we were visiting my family in Des Moines designing our table at the Sticks Gallery there.  It was so much fun to pick symbols and sayings that represented our life together.  Around the edge of the table are sayings and small pictures.  The center of the table has 4 large pictures and the center season medallion.  We couldn't be more happy with how it turned out!

The center of the table -- the 4 seasons.

Big Horn Mountains -- drawn from a picture I had taken while hiking.

Rocky!

Canoe that represents how Joe & I got engaged.

Columbine to represent the 8 years we spent in Colorado.

Enough said!

We had to represent the alma mater!

Blue Bonnets to represent the time we spent in Texas (Blue Bonnets look just like lupine which grows abundantly around here as well!).

To honor our 8 friends and teammates that we will never forget.

Quetzal bird -- Guatemala's National Bird to show our connection to Guatemala.

Corn to symbolize my roots in Nebraska and Iowa.

Jackson!

One of the legs -- each one represents a different season.

I'm a little scared to let the girls eat at the table, so so far we have been eating meals at the center island.  We had it measured for a piece of glass for the top and once that gets in place we will be able to enjoy it a little more!  I can't wait to have may family meals shared on this table that represents so much about us.

Almost Done...

We are almost residents of our new house!  This past weekend we moved most of our belongings to the garage.  We will be able to move the rest and actually live there on Wednesday!  Yay!  These pictures were taken last Saturday, so things have changed a little more since then.  Hopefully by next weekend I'll be able to stop unpacking boxes and moving furniture to take some pictures of a more finished house!  Thanks to Chris and Greer for helping us move last weekend!  It is so nice to have friends and family close.

Front of the house -- columns still need to be wrapped and stone columns need to be enclosed to make it look like a porch.





Solar hot water storage tank -- solar panels will go in next Tuesday.



Kitchen, Dining area, and living room



Stone fireplace and bookshelves; mantle still needs to go on.



Master bedroom



Master Bathroom walk-in shower -- I can't wait to take a shower in here!



Hallway to bedrooms



Guest Bedroom -- Please come stay with us!!

Thanks for checking in on us!  Tara