Patio Heaven

First things first. A big THANK YOU is in order to all of you. Over the weekend the blog hit 1,000 visitors and I am so grateful for each and every one of you who take the time to stop by our homestead while you drink your morning coffee or avoid productivity after your lunch break. Thank you! There is much in store for our urban homestead, so keep dropping in, we love having you!!

Other big news around here is that I finally got around to replacing my laptop! My poor old HP was no longer portable. The hinges had completely broken down and it sat open on the table all of the time, and it also no longer held any battery charge. For as often as I have to pack up my office and head down state to a meeting, that doesn't really cut it for me. I switched over to a MacBook Pro and while I'm in absolute LUURVE… it's been quite a learning curve and I'm still struggling to make it do basic things. So if pictures are missing or it looks like I've turned off my spell check, I'm sorry. It will get better. I promise!

Now, for one of my other loves: my patio garden. At our townhouse we have been provided an 8x8 foot patio. All personal belongings are supposed to be directly on the concrete and plants can be planted on the two side edges.  Once again, we see the theme of limited space. Future Hubby and I set off to the Habitat ReStore a month ago and bought some old oak dresser drawers (there was no dresser, just drawers…. don't fret). Future Hubby reinforced the bottoms, drilled drainage holes and covered them (on the inside) with steel mesh and put some feet on them to lift them off the ground. I covered them in a few coats of 2nd hand exterior paint from the ReStore ($8 for a nearly full gallon of Sherwin Williams exterior paint!).

I filled them with soil…. yes, I had to buy dirt. To a country girl that seems like the dumbest thing I've had to do in years, and also possibly the most surprisingly expensive as well. 

I planted my starters that have been growing on our kitchen table since March and some seeds as well. I put popcorn in the ground to the right and sectioned it off with some spare yarn and bamboo kabob skewers, to spare it from the lawn service's weed-sackers, and we have a garden!! 

This is, hands down, my favorite place in our home right now. Late afternoon often finds me in a lawn chair, with a cold drink sitting on the grill shelf, my bare feet propped up on the planter next to the pumpkins and a book in my lap. As close to heaven as you can get on an 8x8 ft patio in the city. Although, if someone wanted to send a super cushy outdoor chair, I wouldn't turn it down….

Yes, I do see the irony in posting about my love of my patio and garden when we are in the middle of a heatwave in Michigan that prevents me from being able to enjoy sitting out on the patio. By next week I'll be back out there with my iced tea and a good book.... just you wait and see!