Week Nine: Landscaping, Interior Walls

Now, we're in the present.

My parents came up from Austin to help me with landscaping last week. They cleared the underside of several large oak trees near the homesite that were being strangled by cedars and vines. They also helped me built a little 8'X8' patio with some cut bits of concrete pavers that were being thrown away at Stephen's last jobsite. We had to match up all the little bits to make them roughly the size of actual pavers, and then fit them in so the joints wouldn't be too uneven (we didn't have a saw to cut them.)



Dad said "I'm going to help you come up with a landscaping plan." Dad's all into landscaping plans and xeriscaping. (Did you now the Shawnee Outlook runs an ad for some landscaping company that does "zeroscaping?" I kid you not, "zeroscaping." I even called to tell them they spelled it wrong, so they wouldn't be embarrassed, but it still says "zeroscaping.") So, I did all this work, got a Google Earth satellite photo and put it in Illustrator to make a diagram of where all the existing trees and fences are, and estimated the locations of future buildings. Made a graph over the top that roughly marks every ten feet over the whole thing. I made copies. I gave him copies. I made a little plan of my own he could look at. So he looks at it and says "I don't think you should use Russian olive for a hedge."

Really Dad? That's your big landscaping plan? Aces.

We lost Saturday to errands, but Stephen framed the wall that separates the stairwell to the apartment from the shop on Sunday, and also the little wall that splits half of the shop area from the other half (lode-bearing for kitchen wall above.) Under the stairwell, there is a little door on the outside wall so we can have a little garden shed under the stairs. He bought some little tool that shoots gunpowder to attach the frame to the slab.