I am a Victorian Soul, who lives in a small townhouse that was built in the mid 1970's, not a huge Mega Mansion!! I just recently lost my Hubby Joe, who was a Retired Letter Carrier. I worked night shift as an RN on a Hospital based Rehabilitation( Physical Medicine) Unit for 37 years before I had Knee Replacement Surgery and officially Retired in 2019 after 41 years working in Direct Patient Care ... I am so glad that we retired at 62 years of age and got to spend that time together before he passed....I still do love Retirement!!!!

I DABBLE IN A BIT OF THIS AND THAT!!!!

" IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
George Eliot
George Eliot was actually a pen name for a woman named Mary Anne Evans......

BLOGGING FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Huge Patio and Back Yard Project




 

 Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

 
I am so happy you decided to stop by!!
 
Just a reminder, I will be posting on Wednesdays and Sundays every week so be sure to check back on those days to see a new post...... 

Happy Easter!!!!


 I hope you are spending the Holiday with those you love....

 In my previous post, I shared my friend Anne Marie's home decorated for Easter






 

 Click HERE if you missed that post....

 

I want to Thank Indah, over at My Purple World, for choosing my blog post, Easter Tree and Hutch in the Kitchen, as her feature from last week's Wonderful Wednesday Link Party!!!


Thanks so much, Indah!!!
 
 Thanks Dee, over at Grammy's Grid, for choosing my post, Kitchen Easter Tree and Hutch , as one of her features from the bimonthly Unlimited Link Party that she hosts!!
 
 

 Thanks again, Dee!!
 
 Please stop by and link up to these lovely parties.....


 
And now for a few Personal Notes...
 

Food of the Week
 
On Thurdsy, I made Barna Balls, which is my own combined recipe of oven porcupines, stuffed peppers and meatballs, minus the cabbage and peppers... 


Friday was pizza from Serpico's, Joey's treat.....
 
A plain pie...
 
 
And a mushroom topped one....
 
 
So good....
 
 
On Saturday morning I started to cook around 8 am ....

I put the 3 pound boneless ham in the oven.....
 

 
While that was in the oven, I had eggs boiling on top of the stove for deviled eggs....
 
 
 
And I prepared everything to make my Dad's recipe for Sausage Filling.....
 
 
I used this new gadget that I saw used online by our former parish priest in a fund raiser that involved Pastors cooking....

It is great for breaking up hamburg meat and sausage.....




After the eggs were done, I boiled and the fried 3 rings of kielbasi.....

2 rings of regular smoked....

 
And one ring of cheese....


The sausage filling was now done in the oven.....

 
All I had left was to make the deviled eggs.....

 
I use a potato masher for the filling....

 
Garnished with paprika and chives....

 
This is a Tupperware egg container bought before I was married 43 years ago!!

 
All I have to do today was cook a 3 pound boneless Turkey breast, mashed ( instant ) potatoes and corn for Easter Dinner today!!...
 
 
 
There were 2 amazing Sunsets this week......

This was from Thursday evening....








And this one on Saturday evening when it was still raining but the sun was apparently shining over on the mountains across the river....
 

 
 
 
 
 
  
 
I am so Blessed to be able to see these from our front porch.....


Spring has sprung here.....

 
The forsythias in my yard .....


 
And in my neighbor Khalid's yard are in full bloom.....
 



They only stay in bloom for about a week though.....


One other thing I want to mention is that the handle on the lint screen of our 8 year old dryer broke off.....


Now what the heck do you do when that happens and your dryer works perfectly well???

I looked online and saw that you can buy replacement ones but since my dryer is 8 years old, the model number did not match up to any of the replacements....
 
 

So I looked online to see if there was a local place that sold parts....

 And Lo and Behold, there was one, called Appliance Parts, Etc., about 10 minutes away from us....

So Joe checked it out and of course the owner recognized Joe from working at the Toyoto Sportsplex as his son played Junior Penguin Hockey there!!!

We can not go anywhere without someone knowing Joe!!

Any who, he matched up a new lint screen to our dryer, ordered it and said it would be in the next day and sure enough, it was!!!!



Fits like a glove and only cost $42 compared to the price of a new dryer which I thought we were going to have to get if I could not find a screen to fit!!!

What a relief because I know how hard it still is to get a major appliance without waiting a few months!!
 
 
During the week,  I started my patio project in the back yard....

Last Summer, my one neighbor decided to take out a lot of pavers from her patio in her back yard and put a wood deck in.....

The pavers were up for grabs and I grabbed.....

This is what the patio looked like after the Winter....
 
 
 The main thing I wanted to accomplish was to straighten out this walkway to the shed as I almost tripped and fell several times......
 
Day One


To straighten it out, I was going to have to pull up the crumbling pavers and move the walkway over to the right......
 
 
 
 It also meant that I would have to dig up this section of the yard where the garden rock is as this is where I wanted to walk way to start.....

And this area would now become part of the flower bed in the middle of the yard once the pavers are pulled up....
 

 Most of the pavers that I pulled up fell apart.....


I started putting in the walkway close to the patio....


I had to dig up the asters that were in this area....


I decided that I would use 2 small pavers across to create the width of the patio....


The decomposing mulch that I had to remove to put the pavers in was used to filled in the changes in the flower beds....

I moved the bird bath out ,continued to pull up the old pavers , lay new ones in a straight walkway to the shed.......


I also put in the scalloped brick border as I made my way to the shed.....



Down by the shed, I used pieces of pavers to fit in and finish the walkway.....



 
 Straightening the walkway also created a nice straight flower bed along this side oft he fence.......

 
 
 
And I transplanted the asters back into this flower bed....

 
So much better and now hopefully, I will not fall walking to the shed......

 


 

This area now became part of the middle flower bed......




Moving over to the left, this area was next to work on.....


 
 I wanted to place pavers on both sides of this "Bump Out" for the umbrella base.....

I used the smaller pavers for this.....

  
 
 
 I also extended the patio using pavers over to the beginning of the new walkway...
 
 
 
 This side of the patio extension was done.....
 
 
 
  
 
 

Day Two

It rained a bit the night before.....

 
 I just moved the table and umbrella here to get it out of the way.....

 
 I forgot to mention that I swept sand into the cracks, then watered it to get the sand to settle in the cracks and repeated the process a few times and will continue to do so several more times next week....

Next in the plan, was to straighten out the scalloped border down this walkway to the gate that had uplifted and fell over in parts during the Winter.....
 
 
 

 
 I did that with no problem....

 
I also swept up a lot of leaves and debris from the Winter back here by the gate....

 
 
I graded the newly created flower beds along the fence and here in the middle of the yard...
 

 
Day 3
 
 On this day, I worked on this side of the yard....
 

 
See the circle indent in the mulch?
 
 
 
 I wanted to extend the patio out and be able to put the second umbrella base on pavers......

So once again, I dug out decomposing mulch and hauled the buckets to the back of the yard and used it to fill in along the fence......
 
 
 I had run out of pavers so Joe picked up both the large and small ones for this side of the Patio and yard from Lowe's...
 
 
 Perfect for the umbrella base....

 
 
 
Next up was fixing this area...... 


I wanted to move the bird bath planter under the arbor but I need a walkway to get to it so I can water the flowers I plant there and also water my hanging flower bags that are on the arbor....

 
 
Here is what I did.....
 
 
 
 
 Joe bought 5 bags of mulch for $10 at Lowe's and I started to put down fresh red mulch in the back yard since I was now finished with all the hardscaping....
 
 


 





 







Amazing what a fresh topping of mulch will do, isn't it????

I used up all the bags of mulch and will get 2 more bags now that it rained and tamped everything down and I can see where I need to fill in and there are 2 areas where I need to finish mulching...

I just have to show you that I sat on this stool when digging up mulch and putting pavers down....


Yes, I was bent in half!!

My back, legs and hands were killing me for days....


Day 4

Now that all that hard work was done, it was time to take the tarps off the patio furniture and pots and other yard things that I had covered for the Winter....

I started over on this side of the patio....


I had an artificial Tree in the corner for many years but the squirrels stripped the top branches bare and it looked like it had seen it's last day....

The black urn that the Tree was in was in excellent shape so I had Joe remove the Tree from the urn....

 
Yes, he puts on those sandals to come outside in the back and will probably kill himself one day wearing socks with them!!!


 
Now I can use this urn out in the front of the house where I have other things in black ....


And it gave me a lot more room in this corner....


You may remember that I have used this file cabinet, shown in a picture from last year, for at least 10 years to store garden tools and other supplies in....


Well, it needed to be painted once again so I decided that we would toss this and buy something that was weather proof so I would not have to keep painting it....

I am a researcher and love googling things on the internet....

Well, I found exactly what I wanted and it turned out that our local Home Depot, which is about 10 minutes from our house, had several in stock.....

Joe was out and about searching stores for what I wanted so I called him....

And ironically, guess what store he was in?????

Home Depot!!!

What are the chances?????

This is what we bought....

 
It was a bit more than what I wanted to pay, $59,  but at least I got instant gratification!!!
 
It was easy to put together with simple instructions, each piece labeled by letter and it just snapped together!!!

 
I put it together because Joe does not read directions and I usually have to take things apart and put them together the right way...


It has a nice hinged lid.....


 
I organized my garden tools and supplies in a bucket and small plastic container....



And it makes a nice table and goes well with my patio furniture....


And best of all, I will not have to paint it!!!
 
I pulled the fairy garden tub away from the wall of the house and put it on the edge the Patio where it belongs in the Summer....
 
 
 


Day 5

After sweeping up , packing tarps away and straightening out the one side of the patio, it was time to do the other side.....





 

 

 
 
You can see that I put out all my pots .....

Next week, I hope to wipe everything down and bring up the patio art, wreaths, outdoor rugs, cushions and accessories and get it set up for the Summer.....

I do want to mention that the patio umbrellas, which are simple beach umbrellas, worked perfectly on the new pavers and cleared the custom made awning on the back of the house.....




I need extra sources of shade back there as the patio area right off the house gets the Sun all day long and you can fry an egg on the pavers back there during the Summer!!! 

 
You may remember that over the past few years, I waged a war with the squirrels that were being fed whole bags of peanuts by my neighbor, 2 houses up and were coming into my yard to bury those peanuts in my pots and digging in my yard.......

Last year, we had it out and he PROMISED to stop and APOLOGIZED profusely....

Apology was accepted as long as he never did it again....

I even helped him landscape his front yard last Summer....

Well, guess what????
 
 I started noticing an abundance of squirrels in my yard and patio over the last 2 months....




Then I started seeing the squirrels digging in my yard....


 
Burying......

You guessed it.....Peanuts!!!

I darn near lost my mind!!!

Joe collected a bag of about 30 peanut shells from our back yard, and taking a page from my Mother's play book, poured them out of the bag right in front of my neighbor's front door....
 
He fills this wastebasket with peanuts..


My Mother did this when her neighbor across the street kept leaving their dog out and the dog kept pooping in our yard so my Mother collected all the poop on a big garden shovel and marched across the street, up the neighbor's sidewalk and deposited it all right on the stoop in front of their front door which they always used!!

Their dog pooping in my parent's yard stopped....

Needless to say, within a half hour, I got a call from my neighbor stating he was going to "talk" with me about that and wanted to know when I was going to be planting my flower pots.

I told him that it makes no difference when I would be planting my flowers because my yard is all holes and what does he not understand about the meaning of NO!

So once again, we came to the understanding that he is NOT allowed to EVER do this again because if so, I will be attending a Council meeting to petition our Twp. to enact an ordinance that would impose Fines for feeding animals like other municipalities in our area have...

You can make a fool out of me once but if you do it twice, that will definitely be the last time it happens!!

So now, even though he has stopped, the squirrels are coming back into my yard to look for their darn peanuts and dug up the mulch that I just put down....

 
This hole is about 5 inches deep!!


 
Here it almost dug out the asters I just transplanted!!






I am not only concerned about my garden but about them getting into our attic and causing lots of destruction up there as they have been known to chew on electrical wires....

So it seems that the War wages on.....

SIGH!!!!

Once again, HAPPY EASTER TO YOU AND YOURS!!


 I hope you will stop by to visit again on Wednesday for my next post which I have no idea of what it will be about yet!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......


I am linking up to these parties:
 
 

 
Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

 

 

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17 comments:

  1. Miss MerryApril 17, 2022 at 12:08 PM

    So much hard work! I don't know how you did all that! Amazing. And it looks just lovely. I just can't believe you were able to do all that. It looks like it was professionally done. I have a special kneeler with handles that I use to plant annuals and I am not sure I could dig out and reposition all those stones. Mulch does really finish a job doesn't it? And I am so glad your walkways are safer. The storage box is wonderful. You will really appreciate it and it looks so great with your furniture.

    I cannot imagine the language in my house concerning the squirrels. The audacity of your neighbor and now the absolute mess they have made! Grrrrr. I would definitely be writing a letter to start the works of putting in that ordinance against feeding them. I dont' remember if you have tried this, but we had something eating our flowers (I think rabbits) and I was able to buy dried blood at our nursery and sprinkle it around the flowers. It kept them away. Perhaps it would help with squirrels? We haven't had squirrel issues but we do have raccoons that hang out because of my trashy neighbors who don't cover their trash cans and the occasional skunk that we see on our camera trot across our front porch at night. I understand the skunks hang out for the same reason. We live next to a rental house and it seems that each new tenant is worse than the last. We did have an opportunity to purchase it a few years ago and my husband said no. I may bring this up every day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MinnieApril 17, 2022 at 1:57 PM

    Happy Easter!
    All the work you did on the pavers, WOW! Looks lovely. Sorry about the squirrel problem. I think they are fun to watch ...in the park. Not
    in my garden!
    Glad to hear you were able to fix the dryer problem. As a kid I remember hearing, “The smallest pebble can toss you over the handlebars.” I
    was an adult before I realized it wasn’t just referring to bike riding.
    I’ll say this again, You have the most beautiful sun shows! And right from the front porch. Lucky girl.
    Happy Easter 💜
    Blessings to you
    Minnie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasApril 19, 2022 at 10:04 AM

      Minnie,
      Thanks so much for stopping by to visit!! Yes, we are very lucky that we can watch such amazing sunsets from our front porch!! One of the few times i do not curse those 13 steps to get up from our parking lot to our sidewalk in front of the house...being high up does have some advantages!! LOL!!
      Hug,
      Deb

      Delete
  3. UnknownApril 18, 2022 at 2:58 AM

    Wow you did a lot in such a short time. I am seriously impressed. It looks wonderful! It really does. It would've taken me all summer, and I am not even exaggerating. I love that deck box. It's pretty and if you don't ever have to paint that file cabinet I'd say it was well worth the price. Darn your peanut feeding squirrel neighbor. I hope he stops that habit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasApril 19, 2022 at 9:59 AM

      Thanks so much for stopping by!! I truly appreciate your sweet comment!! It was hard to do but I have done work like this so many times before that it really went rather quickly!! Happy Easter!!
      hugs,
      Deb

      Delete
  4. JeanieApril 18, 2022 at 1:09 PM

    That patio is quite the project! Well done -- it looks terrific and I'm impressed. I suspect every bone was aching after all that but how you will love it if things ever warm up. (It's snowing here today!). Three cheers for you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Creations By CindyApril 18, 2022 at 4:27 PM

    Your patio looks awesome! Girl, how many Ibuf. did you have to take after that? LOL! All we have tons of squirrels at our house. We have to put our bird feeders up really high to keep them out. I hope that your week is lovely. Hugs and blessings, Cindy

    ReplyDelete
  6. MariaApril 19, 2022 at 6:07 AM

    oi bom diaaa.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasApril 19, 2022 at 9:25 AM

      Maria,
      Good morning to you in Brazil!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!
      Happy Easter!!
      Hugs,
      Deb

      Delete
  7. Linda BakerApril 19, 2022 at 2:05 PM

    Hey Debbie,
    What a fantastic job you've done on the patio and yard! You and Joe will get so much enjoyment out there in the warm weather.
    Once again, a big thank you to Anne Marie for sharing pictures of her exquisite Easter collections. Such a treat!
    I always look forward to your food selections....yum, yum....
    Blessings, Linda

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasApril 19, 2022 at 2:27 PM

      Linda,
      Thanks so much for your very kind words and I am so glad that you liked the post on Anne Marie's Home. I am glad that I have the patio project in my rear view mirror....Hopefully, the weather will cooperate this Summer and not get so disgustingly hot and humid...Then maybe we can sit out there...I am praying for that...Thanks so much for continuing to stop by!!
      Hugs,
      Debbie

      Delete
  8. CarolApril 19, 2022 at 7:53 PM

    Your backyard and patio projects are really taking shape. Kudos to you for all your hard work.
    Thank you for participating in Talent-Sharing Tuesdays Link-Up 16.
    Carol
    www.scribblingboomer.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lisa BlairApril 20, 2022 at 10:54 AM

    Thanks for sharing your garden revamp. The new walkway looks great! and the garden beds look awesome too! Sorry to hear about the squirrels.

    ReplyDelete
  10. mjmaterazoApril 21, 2022 at 10:29 PM

    Wow! That is a ton of work Deb.. Well done; it truly looks amazing. I am glad you fixed the walkway so you don't trip anymore. That type of thing always worries me. Now sit back and enjoy all your hard work in that beautiful patio. Good luck with the squirrels and your neighborhood. That's truly unfortunate and so unnecessary. XO- Maryjo {masterpiecesofmylife.com}

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dee | GrammysGrid.comApril 22, 2022 at 10:06 AM

    Lots of work but so worth it when finished. Thanks so much for linking up at the Crafty Creators Link Party 15. Pinned.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Julie's Creative LifestyleApril 25, 2022 at 4:23 PM

    You did a great job with putting down the new pavers in your yard Debbie. I like your new bin to keep you gardening tools. It will look great for the summer months in the backyard.

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousApril 30, 2022 at 10:56 PM

    I enjoy seeing your projects and cooking projects. I’m sure if feels great to have that finished!

    Those sunset pictures are gorgeous!

    Thanks for sharing at the Sunday Sunshine Blog Hop!

    Your post will be featured at tomorrows blog hop!

    Laurie

    ReplyDelete

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