NordenBladet – I still dwell in August with my blog and the reason for that is the abundance of events in August due to which the time for blogging was lacking. While in my last post I wrote that my older daughter Estella Elisheva moved out from home (to MUBA student dormitory) and partly started leading an independent life, then it wasn’t all about August.
This year we have been working on the house and on the garden. Like it is with old houses, everything is falling apart and needs caring and renovation. Therefore we have done a lot of renovation and innovation plans.
We started with the elementary – insulation of the house. (I wrote about the building’s energy efficiency upgrading HERE). The plan was to insulate the windows as well as the basement and paint the house before winter. Unfortunately that wasn’t how far we got this time. Partly because I jumped from one project to another and created new duties on the way a la :
“Listen honey, I´m sorry but can I disturb you for a sec, what do you think about taking this apple tree out,” etc.
The windows were insulated, new fresh slats were placed, but the insulation of the basement and the painting of the facade will remain for spring. We have already got the materials – nothing will happen to the basement insulation materials but I hope that the paint will endure the winter time.
There are also many modifications in the garden. While last year we took down the entire buckthorn plantation, then this year we took down “only” two apple trees, an old pine tree, many berry bushes, a small aronia hedge and half of the big lilac hedge. A lot of branch cutting, a lot of branch carrying and burning and hell a lot of taking out the roots and making the ground even. Hereby I would like to say many thanks to Raido and Marie – doing it all together it all went a lot faster and was more fun!
The toughest was the lilac hedge, since that is one real underwood, The lilacs already took almost 6 meters of garden space, now there is more space. We cut the lilacs near the roots, sprinkled a natural compost accelerator and covered the place with plastic. We hope this will help “suffocate” them. We’ll see next year if and how we can get hold of the roots and if it is still necessary.
I ordered from Hortes more than a hundred trees of life (100 Brabant and 8 Smaragd) and planted them near the fence where the lilac hedge used to be. Gosh how the garden devours plants! Just trees of life I have bought for the garden over 400 plants. Extra to that I have ordered soil (a pile as well as in bags the rodo as well as coniferous soil) and from Isekallur.ee also some tarmac.
In August I took out most of the herbs and salad materials (chives, salad leaves and onion) but still it is so good to have your own garden! It was only yesterday that I took from the garden some peppermint, oregano and thyme. Herbal teas and herbs all come from my own garden and field (starting with linden blossoms and finishing with primula and all that is between them.. I just love life in the countryside!). Besides, I dry herbs for winter and grind them into jars and my home’s witch kitchen is advanced step by step. This year there were also plenty of apples. We have very good sorts of apples, some of them remain edible for several months I believe.
From bigger events I should bring out my father Jüri’s birthday and Allan’s family’s annual fishing tradition that began with Allan’s father Rein’s birthday. Although Rein himself is not with us anymore, the tradition of sending away the summer still lives.
I, too, had a birthday in August but this year once more I did not celebrate. As a matter of fact I have not celebrated for a long time already, I don’t even know why. In the future I will begin to celebrate because for some time already I have the new attitude – and this is: DO NOT FORGET YOURSELF!
Below you can find pictures from the tiny celebration of my father’s birthday and also from the fishing event.
Until the next blog! Hugs!
