A few weeks ago I started to second-guess our decision to keep our house in Portland, rather than selling it when we had the chance before starting grad school down in Eugene. A weekend of back-breaking labor in Portland though cured me of that feeling. When we say we’re “going home”, we still think of that house as our home. The house smells like our
Lents Town Center Design
As I mentioned last week, I recently wrapped up another term in my Masters in Landscape Architecture studio. This term we were allowed to choose a site that personally interests us. The site had to originally be focused on a “line” in Oregon somewhere. My “line” was Foster Blvd in Southeast Portland, in the Lents neighborhood. Foster Blvd was originally the route that local farms
Plant a Teepee
Constructing a simple teepee in the garden is a very simple and fun way to work vertically. Living in the city, we are all space-challenged and I have found the teepee a welcome edition every year. You can use old tree branches or visit your nearest nursery for bamboo stalks. Tie your teepee at the top with some twine to hold them together. I also
Woven Fence
I was looking through Gayla Trail’s book You Grow Girl the other day and dreaming about gardening projects. It’s early enough to start seeds indoors, but I have been dying to be out in the short hours of brisk sunlight getting my hands muddy. One of her projects in particular, the woven fence, caught my eye. The project requires lots of thin, long branches, which
Driveway Project Complete
The driveway is done! This project would typically take about two weekends to build, but we had a snow storm roll through town and my grandfather passed away. Now that we have had a couple weeks to recover from those things, it took very little time to finish up the job. My goal was to build a permeable driveway surface that would absorb rainwater, rather
Snow Delay
It’s a winter wonderland in Portland right now. Yesterday we made tremendous progress with the driveway using pavers. I had about 1/3 of the concrete blocks set into place when it just got too cold, with this biting chill in the air, for me to continue. I assume that 90% of the time when snow is forecast for Portland, the news channels are just trying
Diggin the Driveway
One big step in our future driveway project is now complete: the driveway has been fully dug out. It took a couple weekends, but we finished up right before the rains came in. Rather than feeling very satisfied though, I am feeling really annoyed. Our older neighbor Dan stopped by for a chat while we were out working. He expressed some concern over whether the
Building Garden Paths
My garden is very much a work in progress. One of the elements lacking in the landscape are clearly defined pathways. They just seem like so much work to build though, especially for something I won’t actually receive any direct benefit from. Afterall, I know where everything is, where to walk and not walk, etc. But my lovely friends, and sometimes even Jay, are not
Sunday Bliss
Today I had the pleasure of doing some of my favorite things. We begin our morning bright and early with some delicious coffee. Then a trip to the local farms on Sauvie Island with my lovely friend Denise. We make a great combo because neither of us is ready to quit after just one farm. We are all about chasing the “u-pick” crops down on