Victory Garden

On May 14, 2020May 16, 2020 By juliestrubIn Exterior, Garden2 Comments

Let’s talk about something this year that has been good and inspirational: the veg garden.

The ranch has a sizable area fenced off in the backyard for a vegetable garden (or a rose garden?). It separates a big portion of the yard (probably 16×32) from the grass and keeps large four-legged animals out (but not the rats or squirrels, lol). I don’t think it would have occurred to us to build a fence around such a big portion of the yard for a garden. But we like it and have been using it every year since we moved in.

This yeah we went wild with seeds, since March is when the stockpiling panic began. And I had anxiety. Which manifested itself in seed collecting & garden planning! My mom also mailed us a ton of seeds which was great!

We planted: shelling peas, green beans, spinach, kale, butter lettuce, cauliflower, carrots, and got some tomato starts from a fancy local place. We couldn’t find swiss chard seeds, so I’m gonna let the monster chard plants go to seed and harvest those. Anyone need any?

Here’s how it’s looking:

Backyard fence upgrade

On May 28, 2018 By juliestrubIn GardenLeave a comment

The ranch backyard had been fully fenced with a 4 foot high chain link fence, which worked fine and was functional. It kept the dog in and delineated a space, but was fugly and provided no privacy. Solicitors and canvassers would walk down the driveway when they could see us in the backyard, which was super annoying.

There was also a cooky flagpole in the middle of the most prominent area of the chain link, which we used a few times to fly old (gay rainbow) faithful, as well as the Portland Thorns flag. But then the flag pole (in the middle below) broke, which made that area look even more busted.

The chainlink was in decent shape, but started to drive me crazy. It was an eyesore, and I knew that as soon as it came out, the ranch would look a billion times better in the backyard and from the street. There is a house down the street which had been flipped, and one of the first things they did to make it look better was to remove the chain line. It was a huge improvement for a very isolated task, and a bit inspirational.

Behold: a new horizontal cedar fence which Mrs. Strubgrass had installed for me as a noteable anniversary present. We love it! It creates a whole new space for the backyard, which is becoming the cool place to be.

2017 at the Ranch

On December 23, 2017December 29, 2017 By juliestrubIn Garden, Kitchen, Stuff you can't see1 Comment

It’s been a big year. There hasn’t been a new blog post since March(!), but here’s a recap of what’s been going on this year with Ranch and its occupants.

After the initial push to renovate the interior in Fall of 2016, and to deal with the surprise that the roof was actually made of Swiss cheese, we took some time off from any big and/or expensive renovation projects. In addition, after 12 years with my previous company, I switched jobs in May. This has been a smart move and a life upgrade, but has taken some focus away from house projects as I’ve come up to speed on a new platform and life at the early days of a technology start up.

We’ve felt good about the complete renovation of the interior. We’ve been luxuriating in the spa-like shower experience that Mrs. Snodgrass designed & executed, and hosting many holidays in the open plan kitchen/dining area. We reclaimed the backyard kitchen garden, successfully grew tomatoes (for the first time!), planted a mini fern garden, hosted about a billion BBQs and dog romps, and have discovered that our friends’ first choice for a birthday celebration is usually a home cooked meal at the Ranch.

2016 and 2017 have had their fair share of shit (you know what I mean). I won’t get into that here. However, there has been a positive by-product of this downturn of events for our community and our country. We have declared the Ranch a safe haven for our circle of friends – those we’ve known for years as well as some the amazing new friends we’ve made here in Portland and beyond. 2017 has brought us together with a number of folks from near and far that we’ve met through fandoms, Clexacon, Thorns soccer, Instagram (yep!) and being open to creating a supportive community. The ranch has been a key part of this because we have the space to host guests, an open plan to sit and eat, play with the dogs, enjoy the fire, watch Amy Sedaris, etc. This place has became a default home base for our little community.

P.S. Here’s one update that is the kind of thing I would usually post: we had the gutters cleaned a couple weeks ago. During the Thanksgiving downpour, the most prominent gutter convergence near the front door was overflowing, which is about the worst place for a gutter failure. We thought: do we get up on a ladder (well, first buy a ladder that tall) and do this ourselves? I did a little research and it was about $125 to have them cleaned by “Neighborhood Gutters”. Sold! They even sent us some grainy before and after photos (my personal obsession):