Journal Notes...A Break, Heat, Rain & A Future Wedding

I have had a much needed break.  We have had a barrage of guests.  But time to get back to it.  However, the heat is unbearable.  There is a wedding in two months at the Swift-Coles Home...My husband and I married there about three years ago.  The home had been in my husband's family for generations...now it is a museum.

This is where the bride will be and that is the bride.  Figuring out the displays..I'll try to do on the landscape editor.  I'll be growing the majority of the flowers.

This is the house if you turned around on the picture before.  

This is the porch where I married.

This was my wedding day about three years ago.  

 Here is the link to that wedding...click HERE.

The home has such beautiful landscaping.

Wonderful artifacts

Beautiful Interiors.

The heat has been unbearable and I find myself praying for rain.  I am always so thrilled when I see it.  From all the overwhelming things I have going, sheer exhaustion, and heat indexes reaching 110...I have taken a week break from the gardens.

I have had house guest for a week last week for the wedding planning.  The house guests did seem to like the landscaping.  Ah, sweet rain!

I still have so many plants that still need to go in the ground.  Some have died as you might have noticed.

Two weeks before I worked extremely hard in the gardens...I thought I would be showing the gardens.  It's amazing how things can catch up to you.  As an aside, the museum (where I volunteer) was in disparate need of a tractor and I happened (or I should say my husband) had one lying around.  So we donated it to them.

The greenhouse is in such shambles.  I think my husband has finally conceded to put more permanent materials this year.  The weather has been strange and I am wondering if frost will come sooner than normal.  

The visqueen has been repaired many times...I often wonder if it is just to old.  We used 6 mil? I believe.  Not sure how he is going to redo it.

Where have the bees been!  I have even gone so far to ask the local beekeepers.  My only conclusion is that since is a farming community that the bees have closer places to be.  (no pun intended).  I hope that is the case.  We do have a barrage of pollinators around.  We have dragonflies, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths everywhere...but no bees.  I do see wasps....

In any event, I am coasting along...waiting for a reprieve of cooler weather and praying for rain.

DIY Pool Liner Installation

My first recommendation is to have it professionally installed.  This took great pains to install.

There is a thin layer of concrete under the liner that needed to be repaired.  My husband is doing that in this picture.

The water table is constantly attempting to fill the pool.  We had to constantly pump it out while it was repaired.  I say "we" but it was my husband.

The pool is 18x36.  He ordered a 27mil liner.  That ran about $1,200.

I did opt for a darker liner, because I thought it was pretty.  They, also, say it will keep the water warmer, which makes sense.

Box was really heavy.

My husband managed to pump the water from the bottom.  How, I am not really sure.

After all that, which took weeks we installed the liner.

Wrinkles were a serious issue.  This is where I helped.  I went into the stairwell and tugged from the bottom, like a blanket.

While the water was filling, he ran a vacuum to the get the air out from the bottom.

This is before I tugged.  The instructions read that you need four people to help install.  I believe this.  The wrinkles definitely needed to be smoothed from the shallow in, or tripping would be more likely.

He covered the stairwell while the vacuum ran.

Wrinkles, ugh.

Once the liner was in place he had to cut a hole for the bottom drain.

Problem was, after he did that we discovered the liner was crooked.  He had to repair the hole after we shifted the liner and cut a new hole.

The pool is about 20,000 gallons so it took days to fill.

I did love the border

Some wrinkles smoothed out as the weight of the water came in.

We had to finally remove the ladder.  We had to cut it.  We will put it back but it caused a lot of issues in trying to keep the liner straight.

Once semi filled he cut the section that went to the stairwell.

He is repairing the original hole

Smoothed out the shallow end wrinkles...yeah.

He put a weight on the original hole that was repaired.

We still have one wrinkle but it is on the downslope.

Finally filled.  The fountain is a $30 floating fountain.

Done...well almost...ladder needs to be put back