VIB Chronicles

I had realized awhile ago that I learn best from a lecture, then from reading with pictures and w

I had realized awhile ago that I learn best from a lecture, then from reading with pictures and worst all, is all text. thankfully the internets is an amazing resource when it comes to how-to videos. including gardening videos. after some research, I stumbled on this nursery providing videos on roses. this one is especially useful for first year of my roses. stay tuned for training climbing roses, and pruning climbing roses installments this winter/ early spring.… Read the rest

Yay for rain water!

rain, rain, you can come back now!


Hey-o,so we got our rain barrel installed today. Apparently it won’t help that much with flooding issues. But at least it will gather 132 gallons of water for my future garden and roses.

You can see here for more info on the DC government Storm Water program — the cost is minimal $30 instead of $300 — and if you don’t want to wait 6+ months, you can install one yourself and get a rebate from DC Green Works, the company that installed our barrel.… Read the rest

Let us know

There is something about fireplaces and old, turn-of-the-century homes.

Today, the chimney people came out to give us an estimate – we are looking at the same price tag as the A/C  for two separate chimnys- hmmmm.

If we go through with rather expensive chimney work- we can apparently have either wood or gas. So we are thinking wood in dining room (chimney #1) and gas in the bedroom (chimney #2) – cause its so nice to wake up and turn on the warmth of fire!… Read the rest

Chalk Board Series

remember our to do chalk board?

well, to have even more incentive to be productive, I am starting a monthly chalk board series – to chronicle our to do lists (at the beginning of the month) and our achievement/ failures (at the end of the month). This one is a bit backwards, because I don’t have a picture from beginning of the month. But this is what we’ve done over September:

I know some items are cryptic and some may be hard to read.… Read the rest

Knock, knock

who’s there?

its me, a FIREPLACE!

On Sunday morning, we were having breakfast with a friend, who suggested that we investigate what we have behind the plaster of what appeared to be a fireplace. So we did. After layers of plaster, we found some bricks:

 

After just a few minutes of scraping out mortar and hammering at the brick, sergey was able to push half out to reveal that behind was indeed a fireplace!… Read the rest

Roses are red

and pink and yellow

Yay, so excited we planted roses!

To celebrate getting rid of the giant eyesore tree and (hopefully) the banishment of vines, we planted climbing roses by the back fence.

 

 

It took a bit of time, as ground was pretty hard and filled with glass (we must have taken out two trash buckets full of glass from there). We also got to use the compost that i was diligently harvesting all summer.… Read the rest

Cutting Trees

I am beginning to feel like the tree cutting is just a perpetual part of life. (and I can’t imagine how Sergey feels since he is the one who is doing the actual cutting).

Here are some pictures accumulated over the summer:

1) Front tree box — if you remember, I tried to plant some flowers here, but unfortunately not much came up besides grass (see first picture) and what did come up was taken down by the friendly city people in charge of the tree boxes.… Read the rest