Name That Bush (and more)

In preparation for the fence installation (which is starting today), Nick and I spent all day yesterday (well, all day minus a nap and a two hour long shopping trip to the garden center) digging up plants that would be in the way of the new fence. These included, some arbor vita type trees, some ferns of indeterminate origin, and a huge bush/tree thing that we have no idea what it even is or if it was worth the trouble of digging up and wrapping in berlap. The soil in our yard, well to put it bluntly, SUCKS! Its very gritty and sandy. It doesn't drain or hold water worth a crap. Most of the trees and bushes we dug up are now sitting, bare rooted, in burlap. The soil would just fall away from the roots immediately, no matter what we did. When we water plants, we get puddles of mud and little rivers running through the yard rather than water soaking into the soil and watering the plants. Obviously, any attempt at vegetable gardening is going to require some serious soil fortification. I had planned to start composting our kitchen waste, but that probably wont be enough.

To the fence guys who arrived this morning to install the fence: I feel bad and guilty for the day of hard labor you have ahead of you. I thought you'd bring big automatic post hole digging machines, but instead, all you have are manual post hole diggers, a couple of wheel barrows, and a few five gallon buckets (oh, and approximately 28 huge 8 foot long 4'x4's. Although we're paying over 5K for this fence, I'm sure that whatever your share of that isn't worth it. Wait until you see how crappy the soil is. You'll probably hate me by the end of the day.

I no longer have a place to call home downtown. After a putrid 15 hours of cleaning (man, pet hair can get in crevasses that I didn't even know existed in the apartment), we turned over the apartment keys on Saturday. We actually met up with our landlord's friend instead of our landlord (cuz our landlord who is some IBM internationally-travelling probably-uber-loaded sales guy, is in Turkey for the next few months) which meant that the walk through inspection proses was way less of a big deal than we thought. I just hope we don't get a call in a few weeks telling us that our landlord got back, looked at the place, and decided that we actually owe him more money. The place was clean, the only thing we're worried about is the carpet situation. We had to get a large portion of the carpet replaced (the dining room/living room and hallways) due to dog bodily fluid problems, but the new carpet that we had installed isn't an exact match with the old carpet, which is particularly noticeable at the place where the new carpet in the hallway abuts directly against the old carpet in the bedroom. We spent 1,700 on the new carpet, and it is much MUCH better quality than the carpet that was in there when we moved in. So, in some ways, we did him a favor. But, then again, how big of a deal is it to have two slightly different carpets where you used to have identical carpet throughout?

We did have a nice lunch at our favorite Printer's Row neighborhood eatery, Hackney's, where we've become small scale regulars. We even bought Hackney's T-shirts to commemorate the occasion. We will miss Hackney's a LOT! (but we can always come and visit)

Nick and I had signed up for the LATE ride, (bike ride starting at midnight, going until sunrise, throughout the city, done as fundraiser for Friends of the Parks), but we were so tired from the past three weeks (and so in need of a few hours of unpacking time) that we didn't show up. This is the second time this year that we've signed up for a charity bike ride and didn't actually go. (the charities still got our money though).

That's about it. I still don't know where my camera dock is. I remember packing it in one of those "to make sure I don't forget it or loose it, I'll put it here" places that I immediately forget where "here" is. The search continues. :)