Day 74: St. Patrick's Green

Well, that was a gorgeous weekend. Twenty plus degree weather and sunny skies both days made working in the basement less then optimal. But alas, it had to be done in time for insulation on Monday morning. So, of course, we spent all day Saturday playing in the garden. We mostly spent our time clearing out all the dead debris from last year: raking up leaves, cutting down stalks, pulling up dead plants and the like.

It looks like the garden has been let wild the past year, or more. This means there are a bunch of things growing all over the place and we have mostly no idea what it all is. Looks like the first step in getting a vegetable garden started will be to figure out what everything is so we can decide what to keep and what to toss. Thus begins the great plant identification project.

Some things we are pretty sure of already:

Garlic!	Pretty sure this is rhubarb. Hopefully the tasty kind.
Lily of the valley. (Front yard)	Dozens of maples sprouting in the lawn and garden.
Sedum. (Front yard)	Magnolia is not ready to say goodbye to winter just yet. (Front yard)

Crocus. (Front yard)

Others look like weeds and may get the ax if they don't start doing something distinctive soon:

Random green #1.	Random green #2.
Random green #3.	Random green #4.

Some are a just a total mystery:

I don't have a good relationship with purple vegetables so you'd better be good.	Nope, not ginger. At least not the kind that smells like ginger.
You don't look edible.	Filling up a shady corner of the lawn.

Please divulge your identity.

And just a couple random shots from the afternoon:

Evonne makes a friend.	Impromptu yard waste containment.

On Sunday we decided we'd really better get the basement ready for the guys to insulate. So we spent the day draft proofing a few awkward cracks, putting in a new dryer vent, getting the last few studs in place and running wires for a few more outlets that we hadn't asked the electrician to do. After a late night cleaning up we reached another minor milestone. And then today, the insulators restored the lovely pale green that we've been working the last two months to cover up:

Old green above, new green below.	Ah well, it's keeping with the green theme.

Note from Evonne: Received an email today about the bonus grants being offered by the City for insulation and draftproofing. As suspected, the grant bucket will almost definitely be drained by the time our post-energy evaluation rolls around. We knew this was a possibility likely occurrence so we're not too disappointed. I'm just thrilled with our newly sealed and insulated basement. Never have sickly green walls looked so good.