Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
The Backyard Bookshed Project.
I am definitely getting the camera out this weekend! We’ve got it all going on in the garden now – including potatoes, scallions, broccoli, and nasturtiums starting in the last two days! Not to mention almost-edible radishes and joi choi. In about two weeks I should be taking a bit more than chives out of the garden and I can’t wait!
I thought today I might write about our studio project today because backyard structures – sheds, home offices, living rooms – are all the rage these days among homeowners and we just completed our own version just as planting season started.
When we moved into our house last spring we got our priorities in order right away: 1) Put a suite in the basement, and 2) do something about the collapsing garage in the backyard. So while I got a small garden going last year, we were mainly focused on the basement suite which took over our lives until August when it was finished (and our finances drained). Flash forward to this December when I was fortunate enough to sell my half-duplex on the Sunshine Coast with enough money to turn towards our second priority project out back.
As far as it went, there were three obvious options to our sagging garage: tear it down for more yard space, fix it up to be a garage for our car which I’m just as happy to park out front, or turn into more liveable space. While the first option would have been the cheapest… we don’t have a huge living/dining area in our house… so the temptation was there to go for the third option (which incidentally is the best way to add resale value to a property in our overpriced real estate market). With that in mind, I put together some drawings (not professional ones by a long shot) that turned the garage into an outdoor living room with a sleeping loft and a storage room instead.
Fortunately, my partner is willing to find and deal with workmen, because I positively *hate* doing that part of the project since most men in the biz tend to treat women pretty badly (patronizing, often sexist, sometimes bullying…..). As soon as the sale on my house was inked and we knew money would be coming in, he got on the phone and contacted a contractor who had sort of been referred to us, plus called up an electrician we had used before and really liked. Read More
April Showers.
I’ve started obsessively checking the weather forecast lately – partly because I’m eager to get my tomatoes out, partly because I want to bike to work on the good days, and partly because it seems to change every freakin’ minute. April, after all. It’s a very changeable month.
But there is no denying that spring has fully and firmly taken hold in Vancouver, with temperatures in the mid-teens, flowers popping everywhere, and lots more people getting on their bikes (as evidenced by the crazy-busy bike store I was in yesterday to get a flat fixed).
In my garden I’m about ready to plant my earliest tomatoes which are looking a bit spindly – I think because I didn’t fertilize enough at a particular stage. I’m hoping they recuperate enough to put out some more leaf and flower, but at the moment I’m not sure which way they will go once planted out.
Although I was warned against planting too early, I’m glad to say my carrots and beets are both sprouting which excites me to no end. My peas are coming up strong, my broad beans are little trees at the moment….. There’s just a million things going on in the garden every day, and I am endlessly excited to watch it all come to life!
This is one of the best parts of gardening. Before the bugs come, before having to water twice a day, before any significant weeding commences. Between getting the beds set up and planted and later spring when issues start to emerge, a brief lull in which to enjoy the emergence of new life. The weather right now is the perfect combination of sun, ran and good temperature – and I’m just waiting for the burst of growth that comes with it!
Observations.
New things I noticed in the garden yesterday: my pink dogwood is coming into leaf and flower, my carrots and beets are sending up little shoots already! Oh, and someone stomped on one of my more promising raspberry canes 😦 I suspect that was an angry friend who stormed in and out of my backyard with her bicycle the night before and it made me a little unhappy despite all the other abundance poking through.
Plans for this weekend include: building two more cold frames so I can get my tomatoes and peppers outside soon, planting some cabbage seed since my starts all failed (too much heat I think), doing more yard clean-up, and building a ladder for the outdoor studio-loft. At some point I’ve got to get into the frontyard as well and clean-up the beds. I’ve got some shasta daisies to throw down out there somewhere as well, since my backyard has no room for heavily spreading plants no matter how much I love them.
I am noting nighttime temperatures all above 7 degrees for the next week, which means that it’s almost time for my earliest tomatoes to go in the ground. I’m thinking that I’ll cover one of my tomato beds with black plastic for the next week to get it warmed up since these plants are going in so much earlier than feels right.
Each year it’s hard to imagine the changes from one week to the next. That my garden right now is so much more lush than it was a month ago and in another month again it will be bursting with growth and taking its own shape. That is the miracle of gardening after all isn’t it? The excitements and disappointments day by day. The life and death dance of all things green and beautiful.
Cycling and Running.
I’ve recently got it in my head that I want to increase my daily fitness without having to go to the gym more. I like my gym and all (YWCA Vancouver – you rock!), but the rushed lunchtime sessions my life allows doesn’t seem like enough to counteract the 7.5 hours a day I spend sitting at a desk and I don’t particularly want to add a second session indoors every day. Not to mention that when I’m on the road for work, I don’t always have access to good fitness facilities because while most hotels advertise a “gym” as part of the package these days, they are often little more than closets packed with old treadmills and stairmasters.
Last week, for the first time ever (almost), I took the running I’ve been doing on the treadmill during the last month (shoulder injury kept me from my fitness classes so I’ve been jogging occasionally instead) out onto the streets of Victoria during my visit.
On the first day, running near my folks place, I did twenty minutes (2 km). On the second day went the full circuit and only walked during the last five minutes of a thirty-five minute run (3.4 km) because it was straight uphill. On the third and fourth days I did forty continuous minutes to the tune of 4.4 km (mapped on Google) on the Dallas Road seawall and through Beacon Hill Park (one of those days was in a windstorm too). Which means that over six days I ran 14.2 km. This week I’ve only run once (3.5 km) on the treadmill but I’m thinking that lunch today might be spent on the seawall pushing myself back to forty minutes since there is no time limit in the real world, unlike the gym machines that clock out at 30 minutes.
I’m aiming to get to 50 minutes/5 km, but at the moment I’m content to under 45 minutes just so I don’t torture myself into giving up too soon. Up until now I’ve *hated* running with a passion – my whole life swearing that my build (busty) was an impediment I just could get past. But recently I’ve figured out a few things that have started to change my perspective (I don’t exactly love running yet, I’m just barely past hating but I’m working on changing that):
- A good bra really does make a huge difference. Lululemon makes a bra called the Ta-Ta tamer that has a strong binding function which is what I need more than “good support”.
- It’s okay to go slow. My heart rate does just fine at a slow jog (averages 145) right now, and it’s okay for me to focus on length of time as opposed to distance since I’m not a racer.
- Good shoes also make it easier. I just bought a pair of cross-sport Merrell shoes that weren’t cheap but feel great – and I can use them for hiking, running, cycling and climbing. Such a difference from the low-end New Balance cross-trainers I’ve been wearing for years.
- As the weather gets nicer, exercising outdoors has all sorts of aesthetic and emotional benefits that I really do appreciate. The more picturesque the run, the better!
So we’ll see. On top of the running, I’m also attempting to cycle to work on good weather days – starting today! As with the running, I am the slowest cyclist out there which I’m sure irks the commuting “warriors”, but I’ve decided not to be daunted by them or the traffic in my attempt to make cycling a part of my weekly routine. The new Dunsmuir viaduct lane is great, I took it for the first time just after it opened and it really makes a difference not having to cycle through the DTES or Gastown both in terms of time and traffic stress. I’m not sure that I would take it home as it is just as easy to use the Pender bike lane going east to where it connects to Adanac. Mostly I just try to stay to the side of the lane so the fast people can pass me and it’s only thirty minutes door to door (ten minutes less than my bus commute). Give me a couple of weeks and I’ll have that down to twenty-five minutes I’m sure!
Just figuring it out now – if I managed to cycle to and from work (6.2 km each way) and run for forty minutes at lunch, I would be looking at a total of 16.5 kilometres of self-propelled travel/exercise without adding any extra minutes to my daily routine. That’s crazy! And also pretty unlikely in terms of a daily routine. A couple times a week though – that certainly couldn’t hurt.
Red Cedar 