Mama's Gettin' a Hammock!

This weekend was a busy one! We had great weather, and a decent amount of energy to get alot of the fall chores done. Not often both of those come together at the same time. I managed to spend the entire weekend doing nothing but moving plants around. I found this summer that our sun/shade combination had changed enough over the last few years that many of my plants in the perennial garden were suffering due to lack of sunlight caused by the growth of some of our trees. In the process, I divided many of them and was able to fill in some empty spaces for free! Of course, none of it will be noticeable until spring & summer. Sailor/Farmer/Husband probably has trouble understanding me running around with dead ("excuse me, that's dormant", lol) cut down bushes and spearing spades through them, but all I can see is "free plants"!!

My husband's idea of a good time in the yard involves power tools and things that are questionable for the environment in general, but in his defense, usually things that need to be done in a brutal fashion. Some advance notice would be nice, though...

I am referring to Saturday morning, when I was sipping my morning coffee and leaving a comment on Mama Pea's blog. I was in mid-type when I heard the distinctive noise of a chainsaw... After stating on her comments that "ooooh, I better go, I hear a chainsaw...", I ran outside to this:

Yes, there goes my tree! Granted, this tree had some serious problems, including some decay & rot at the soil level on the trunk, but it was my shade tree for the gravel patio area! Here you can see it behind the kids. It's a purpleleaf Sand Cherry, or some call it a purpleleaf Plum. Either way, it is really pretty and the blooms in the spring are knockouts. It had seen better days though. A hurricane messed it up pretty badly about 4 years ago, and it never recovered and has been going downhill since. But still, some notice would have been nice, as I never really got a decent picture of it while it lived!

Tree is behind the kids with the purple leaves

My Purple Leaf Sand Cherry in Spring

Which brings me to the hammock! I have always wanted a hammock. I wasn't sold on putting a tree back in that area, since planting it among the roots would be painstaking, and I would also have unwanted shade on some of my raised beds. So the kids and I re-routed our little "fake dry riverbed" and reused some slate I had stored from our old huge aquarium and created a little patio area where the tree trunk was. We have a small shade sail that we never got around to putting up so we will use that here. Picture a triangular shade sail suspended above this area and a hammock that will straddle diagonally the dry riverbed and slate walkway to it. I am also going to finish the herb garden here, with some extra thyme, sage, and Salvia for color. I already have lavender and rosemary on the left and right. Of course, I will probably never get to actually lay in the hammock and read since I have too many garden chores and little heathens to chase around and a husband on deployment, but I am hoping that just looking at it might have the same relaxing effect!

New Hammock-Patio area

Lastly, our Chief Bottle Washers helping us sanitize and bottle a batch of homebrew Saturday night! We like to call it "Life Skills class"!