Your neck of the Woods Part 10 Memorial Day

We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1357800/#new

I cannot believe all the appropriate giraffe pictures you keep finding...!!

It's amazing, I think I have a Christmas one, and a Jack O' Lantern smile. I may have to photo shop a 4th of July though. I even found some for mother's day and father's day, but they're for adult audiences only. LOL

SOOOO--please tell us, Ric--what is this fascination with YOU and all these Giraffes????

What's the connection???? You DON'T have a long neck---You don't have spots all over--
You don't have 4 long legs....and you do not subsist on leaves growing 20' up in a tree....

What???????????? G.

Your "Neck" of the woods, it just seems appropriate. LOL

OH! I get it!!!

Was not thinking a-LONG those lines..... G. :o)

Happy memorial day. Have you heard of this new holiday cactus the Memorial day cactus rofl. This chuckle brought to you by gitagal And coleup!

Perfect tho isnt it?

Ric, the giraffe's backend pic to end the last thread was great. Now I'm wondering about the inappropriate mother's and father's day pics LOL.

Sally, lovely Memorial day cactus - I think you should market it and make a fortune ha ha ha.

I had a GREAT weekend. Mike and I, his two brothers (Lowell and Richard), and their fiancées (Suzanne and Karen) worked our backends off - I should find a way to insert Ric's giraffe pic here LOL. Anyway, the place is looking good. The docks, decks, and outdoor furniture are pressure washed, the gardens are mostly weeded and mulched, and we're ready for the DG get together next weekend. I even have all my plants for sharing dug and potted up. Cleaning the house later this week will seem like a piece of cake after the many weeks of outside work!!!

Sounds like a lot of work, Aspenhill. And we all get to enjoy the fruits of your labor when we come for the swap! :-)

What Sally needs is a white petunia and a blue ageratum in that pot also. LOL
I'm looking forward to seeing everything Terri. I know it's a lot of work and your place dwarfs ours.
Since I have the garden pretty much wrapped up, I'm starting to pull plants from the greenhouse so I can get the row of large potted plants out into the yard. I need to get our hanging baskets potted soon, since the plants are mostly 4' they look fairly complete when potted. Back to work.

I can't wait, Terri!

Its a lot of work getting things nice for guests but when thy leave and you still have all the nice clean organized place- that's great too.

Terri--

Maybe you could, somehow, incorporate the Giraffe's picture on our name tags????

You ALWAYS have knocked yourself out with having everything as beautiful as possible...
Believe me--it IS admirable that you do all this....

G.

After I unloaded a yard of mulch from the trailer this AM, I went with Jamie to recover some lumber, Ha, Ha. It turned out to be a most of the day job. They had 4 pallets 8'x16' made from 2x6s and 4x4s. We ended up with 68-2"x6"x16' and 20-4"x4"x8'4", almost $900 worth of lumber for 4 hours work, each. He said he needed a new porch, now he has the lumber.
So if I'm stiff and ouchy on Sat. we'll blame Jamie. Getting ready for a swap is almost as much work as getting ready for vacation, so I think we should all bring our tents and spend a week. How's that sound Teri? LOL
We're looking forward to seeing everyone.

Ric---

How did you lift all those huge palates? 16' x 8'!!!! Just the two of you????
That sounds insane!!!!

Where was all this dumped that you could just go and take it?

I am in AWE! Gita

its mind blowing the stuff you find for free Ric and Holly.

Well, couple years ago Mark decided to add insulation to the attic. He cobbled it together from a couple offers on Craiglist, odds and ends. Not all free but cheaper and you feel good that you kept it from being wasted.

Many military and supply base get quite a bit of their materials shipped in wood and allow employees to take it. They never try and sell it as it causes complaints from local HDs and Lowes, etc. Many times they have to hire contractors to bring in huge machines to grind it into mulch. It's enough to make a grown reuser cry. LOL Many people don't bother, they think the labor involved to disassemble and denail is too great. But to someone with a creative mind and limited funds it is a mother lode.

Mother lode, INDEED!!!! Major score!!! Jeff would be in heaven.

here's our retire,ment home- just need some land not too far from military supply base I guess

http://www.viralforest.com/pallet-house/

Wow...that's a nicer house than most people have in 3rd world countries.

I love that!

I've got to send that to Jamie. At 30 he is Mortgage free right now they have a couple of acreas of land about 2-1/2 with an old mobile home. All paid for but they are thinking of up grading the old mobile for a new house. With something like that he could upgrade and stay mortgage free. LOL

Absolutely!!!!! Wouldn't that be fun?!!!

I want one! :-)

I saw a guy take overseas rifle crates and stack them on a slab like laying brick, adding roof rafters from used wood and ply wood from crates to sheet the roof. He then bought shingles and vinyl siding, and a door, making a garage where all the walls were shelves.

Half of our house is overseas packing crates. They are made from exterior plywood. When we were building the first part of the house my Dad had a moving and storage business. He did a lot of moving for the military and would get furniture from returning military families that came in the crates. He would open the crates and move the furniture to their new state side homes. We would tear them apart and use the plywood on our exterior walls. If you look under our siding you will find all kinds of addresses printed on the plywood.

Love a house with history like that!!

I first saw this pallet house thing connected to the idea that when relief agencies send pallet ful of supplies the pallets themselves could be used. But maybe they get torn up into firewood to cook with.

very cool, Holly! Wonder if my family's shipping crates ended up in your home! :-) (My father was in the Air Force and had 3 different overseas assignments.)

That part of the house is close to 38 years old. Would he have moved into this area around that time? LOL

well, in 1972 we moved from Guam to Springfield, MA. As I recall, Bayonne NJ was a big point of arrival. But of course I was only joking. ;-)

LOL Close by not close enough.

Wow, Guam, what zone is that? Zone 12?

It is in Zone Humid--LOL! I remember when I first got off the plane there (I was 11), it felt like I was walking into a sauna. It is 10 degrees north of the equator so very little temperature variation year round, and the constant island trade winds keep the temps in the 80s--but the humidity is amazing. Lots of beautiful tropical flowers--I especially remember the plumeria and the orchids, which grew everywhere, including our backyard! Would be fun someday to go back for a visit!

It's changed a lot though. Apparently in the decades since we were there, some kind of invasive snake has decimated the native bird population. :-(

Oh man that's terrible about the snake :( plus snakes are creepy! Darn humans being careless. I always thought it would be cool to see no shadow at that perfect time of year when the sun was directly overhead. Up here we always have a shadow to the north side.

yeah, it is really awful about the snakes. :-(

I hadn't thought about the shadow thing! Wish I were still there so I could experiment and let you know! :-)

OK so I'm getting ready for swap today, ( shop, make food, tea, plants) and youngest son has HS graduation tonight. Oldest just got his college diploma in the mail yesterday. If anyone needs me I'll be in Lala Land very shortly....and boy am I ready for a glass of 'enhanced grape juice' with all you guys tomorrow!!!

congrats on 2 big transitions! :-) Looking forward to some enhanced grape juice myself--LOL!

Lol...'enhanced' grape juice.

Just think Sally 4 more years and you will finally not have any children in college. Ric is out shopping and I am digging. Doesn't that sound weird, any other family it would be the other way around. LOL

I don't think it's weird, it seems pretty natural to me. LOL I've finished the Greek pasta salad and am working on my dessert. I cleaned the truck out early this AM and installed a shelf the exact size of our folding table, Oh, it is our folding table.LOL