2 Year Anniversary

Two years ago today Andy and I moved to Ashford Lane. The last house at the end of a dirt road sitting on top of a hill in Winchester, California. We have a 360 degree view of the skyline, we sit on our patio and watch amazing sunsets...the air smells of cow manure (most of the time) and Mother Nature is constantly reminding us who is in charge.

Its an interesting life. Sometimes it is overwhelming. Most of the time it is amazing. Every once is awhile we scratch our heads and wonder what the heck we were thinking.

Our first thoughts and goals for this property was to build a winery. In fact, within 6 months we planted our first 20 vines of Cabernet. Pretty exciting stuff. Since then we have learned that a project such as that might be a little beyond our means...between the economy, our music projects, critter issues, property maintenance and raising teenagers...we definitely have our hands full.

The reason I haven't blog about any of this for so long is because reality totally set in, and it is pretty much all we can do to maintain what we have. It won't always be this way, as we chip away at each individual project, I think the true purpose of this land will become apparent. Its definitely exciting to have property we can build upon...

Future projects include:

Vinyl Fencing

Black Top Driveway

Build carports

Drywall the garage

Hardwood Floors

Paint the Interior

Refinish Cabinets

That should keep us busy, along with ongoing landscaping projects. This year I would definitely like to finish the front yard with more myoporum and decorative rock.

Anyway, Happy 2nd Anniversary Ashford Lane. There are plenty of good things to come. Stay tuned.

Life. It Gets In The Way Sometimes.

Hello, from The Ranch.

Sorry it has been awhile, the past few months have been a whirlwind of experiences. This is definitely a different kind of life.

Regardless of what I tell you...please understand, we still love it here. The challenges are extreme, and there are times when we scratch our heads and say...REALLY? This is what we signed up for? In our inexperience (and naivite) of country living, we thought we would have tons of peace & quiet; a content and soothing live full of sunsets, flowers, birds and butterflies. hahahaha

Two weeks ago, our tankless water heater caught on fire.

Rodents have been chewing the wires on my car resulting in hundreds of dollars in damage.

Andy's car has had 2 tranmission replacements, and 2 weeks ago, it went out AGAIN.

Our doggie has been having seizures since October, and regardless of her meds they were coming more frequently and violently. We had to put her down :(

To add to our rodent issues, we now also have gophers.

On the upside...

Our flower gardens around the house are thriving. I am ready to go buy some Verbena...the lady down the street has many colors of it, I can't wait!

We now have a regular water heater. Andy was able to install it himself.

Andy is building shelves in his workshop in the garage...really pretty. He is SUCH a talented handyman!

The owls are thriving, they just had fledglings, and now there are TONS of them on the property.

We have also had sightings of bald eagles...AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL!

So...life goes on. We painted a wall, built a coffeetable/bookshelf, we weed and fix and plant. We learn so much along the way. It is exhausting, but in the end...it is worth it.

I'd love to sit and write more...but I hear Andy revving up the tractor mower...so that means I gotta get to work.

The Kitchen Sink

Been awhile since we've done any home improvement projects. I think last year kinda kicked our butts and it was nice to take a break. HOWEVER, we had some good friends over one night for dinner and one of them brought to our attention the leaky faucet in our kitchen sink. I had been ignoring it, plumbing is such a pain in the butt. He said if we continue to let it go, it will start leaking underneath and then it will be a huge mess.


Well...we ignored it for about 3 more weeks, and then last weekend I asked Andy if we could replace the faucet. He agreed, it was time. So, he YouTubed the project and asked me if I would also like to replace the sink...I think I said YES before he got the last word out of his mouth.

So, here it is: Pictures of our kitchen sink/faucet replacement project!

#1 Breaking the seal along the edge of the old sink. This was not easy...even cracked some of the countertop laminent. Bummer.

#2 Pulling out the old basin

#3 The empty space

#4 Plumber's putty around the drain

#5 Installing the drains into the new basin

#6 Finished install of new faucet

#7 TAH DAH!!!

Next...painting an accent wall in the living room! Stay tuned!

One Year Later

It has been nearly a year since we moved to the ranch. We still love it, despite some fallbacks and countless hours of work we have put into landscaping and improvements.

We now have somewhat of a vision of the landscaping we are aiming toward...which has been a trial and error process. 5 acres of dirt, rock and weeds can be overwhelming and make it hard to envision the possibilities, but we are getting there.

We have started with small sections of flower gardens and tropical foilage; planting different types of fan palms, lavender, garlics and geraniums along with myoporum, which the rabbits do not touch. Summer is the worst, blistering heat and desperate rabbits can easily destroy everything we plant...so we built irrigation out to every section with set timers and electric fencing to discourage critters.

Once we get all the garden sections established, we are going to bring in crushed decorative rock, planters and paving stones. Its gonna look great. I think this winter we will start working on the interior as well.

We have had an exhausting week. My husband had sinus surgery, our dog started having seizures, and then my father-in-law passed away. As you can imagine, we are trying to keep our spirits and our health up as the Holidays near.

Enjoy the pictures of our tropical gardens, I will keep you updated as they grow.

My New Best Friend

Say Hello to my new friend Mr. Pick-shovel. He helped me dig over 300 holes for planting this weekend.

It has been a super productive weekend. No band gigs, so we stayed home and powered out some projects that have been on the back burner until summer is over. We did a lot. We are tired...but it was SOOO worth it.

Electric Fence

My husband built a series of electric fences around the flower beds to help keep our dog and rabbits out of them. It will not be a 100% fix, as the rabbits can easily squeeze underneath if they are crafty enough, but if it serves as a slight deterent, it is worth it. Jenny definitely does not like the fencing, so she has not ventured over to dig holes (which is one of her favorite pasttimes, along with stealing things, chewing things, and sitting on top of our cars). This is a picture of my husband and my son putting together the last section of fencing.

Ground Cover

Myoporum...rabbits won't touch it. That, and lavender are the only two plants that the rabbits did not chew up this summer. I bought 6 flats of myoporum on Thursday, it only cost me $30. I was able to stretch it all around the house and down the front slope. I am very encouraged that this will take off and we will finally have green around the property.

Drip Irrigation

Andy has been researching how to build drip irrigation around the house for the past few months. There are some very informative videos on YouTube, anyone can do it...AND its CHEAP. He ran it to every flower bed and the front slope where I planted the groundcover, and put them on timers, so now I do not have to go out and drag a hose all around the house a few days a week. With regular water and the warm temps we've been having, I think the ground cover will spread fairly quickly. (This is a better picture of the myoporum after I transplanted it)

This week I am going to buy more red bark mulch to spread over the flower beds to give it some instant colr until the myoporum gets established. That will also help keep the moisure in the ground.

Beautiful, isn't it? Most evenings we sit out on the back porch with our dinner and watch these lovely sunsets. We also watch massive flocks of blackbirds fly over our house the same time each evening to go to wherever they roost for the night. After dusk, Andy and I will sit out here with a glass of wine and listen for the owls. This is why we live here. We love it. Its paradise.

Our next projects? Palm trees. Decorative rock. and Man-cave. Stay tuned!

Lessons Learned

SO, this has been a year of experimenting and getting to know our property. You never really know how much is involved until you take on 5 acres. It's a lot, but all in all, we love it. As we learn, we are taking notes about how to handle the seasons and the elements for next year.

Our goals are still in place to beautify the property. For example we want more tropical foilage, flowers and eventually full landscaping. This is going to have to manifest in stages, perhaps over the next 5 years or so. (That's a lot of blogging, eh?) Our biggest obstacles are obviously the rabbits, squirrels and weeds...but we also experience high winds, long bouts of heat and weird things like giant flying ants (don't ask).

As far as the rabbits and squirrels go (plus our sweet doggie who likes to dig holes) we are going to install some low voltage electrical fencing around our flower beds. When next season rolls around (early spring) we are going to put out bait to cut down the squirrel population, and net all of our fruit trees. The owls will probably be in place as well. Hopefully this will allow us to harvest some fruit from our grove and plant some flowers and plants around the house.

We are also noting that the rabbits will eat (or destroy) almost anything when summer hits, simply because they are desperate and the population is high after the spring breeding season (although they breed all year long...sigh). The plants they are NOT touching are lavenders, that weird ground-cover stuff I put out front, the white stinky flowers, and the light green garlics. So there is SOME hope of plant-life.

SO, our planning time-line goes something like this:

October - install electric fencing
November - drip irrigation to flower beds
December - planting (ground cover, garlics, fan palms, lavender, etc...)
January/February - rainy season, sit tight, work on garage and interior of house
March - Spray for weeds, put our squirrel bait, more planting
April - bud break for grape vines, net fruit trees
May - spray for weeds again, plant grape vines
June - mow down the weeds that grew anyway

By this time next year I hope to have the flower beds healthy and in full bloom. The grape vines may have a few grape clusters, if not then probably the year after that. Then we will have a whole new list of things we have learned. lol

Wabbit Twacks

I never thought I would see the day when I hated rabbits. Not indifferent, not dislike...hate. I have definitely reconsidered my position on the whole Elmer Fudd vs. Bugs Bunny rivalry.

Now that the weeds have all dried up and been mowed down (it was quite a feat, but we finally got them under control) the rabbits are desperate; coming up to the house and eating EVERYTHING we have planted. Even the garlic.

This used to be a 4-foot tall Bird of Paradise.

I am just sick about the whole thing. They also took down two of my mini-palms.

So, we are learning. The hard way. Not sure if I mentioned this is a previous post, but the squirrels also ate every last stitch of fruit on our trees. The only fruit we even got to taste were the sugar plums.

In happier news, I think an owl has made his home in our owl box. YAY! Every night right after sunset we hear him flying around the property and landing on the box, we have caught a glimpse of him too. I think it is a screech owl. This is VERY good news.

The vineyard is doing nicely as well. Andy and Roger put up the trellising system for the baby vines and the little guys are creeping up and grabbing ahold already, it is SO COOL.

So, this spring and summer has been a learning experience. Next year we should have a better understanding of the in's and out's of running the property more efficiently. Hopefully we will have a family of owls living here, we will be netting trees and taking a stronger position in "rodent defense".

Another work-in-progress is a website I am building. Check it out, you can view it at www.dilongranch.com

Cheers!