Dog Compost

     I was using StumbleUpon one day and came across a website that was talking about how to make your own dog compost. So I decided that would be our weekend project (and yes this was like a Thurs or Fri). So that evening we made a trip to the home improvement store to buy the materials: large trash can with lid and septic tank starter.  We wanted to put it in the front corner away from our house so we pulled up a straight row of bricks to get there and the bricks that were in that area leaving the rest for later (yes they are still there). From there Neill and I took turns digging a 2~2.5 feet wide, 3 feet deep (big enough for the trash can). We didn’t really think about the large tree on the property line just on the other side of the fence, so we had to adjust the location of the hole a little to work around some really big roots. We used our tree trimmer to cut some of the smaller roots. Once the hole was done, we cut off the bottom of the trash can (so the compost can drain properly), and because of the tree roots we had to cut some funky shapes for the trash can to fit around the roots. We also drilled holes in the side of the trash can for more drainage. Once we put the trash can in the hole, we added some sand at the bottom and started to fill in some around the sides. I wish we would have put some gravel and a few bigger rocks at the bottom because the sides started buckling in, so I had to stop filling in the sides.  It doesn’t look great but it seems to be working good enough.  One note in case you plan on doing this: don’t use the compost on anything you plan to eat or up stream of anything you plan to eat.  I haven’t used the compost yet. I have thought about putting it in my front flower garden, but I’m not sure if I will. Oh and the septic tank stuff gets added every time we put waste in it to help break it down. Make sure to add water to get them started.  You can add other compostable material if you don’t have a regular compost yet (like us). Ah now we can start to enjoy our backyard, if only there were grass or something other than leaves and dirt.Well, that’s just another project on our list.

Dog Run Gate

                One day probably around the end of June, I decided I wanted to price the materials that would be needed for the dog run gate.  I had used Lowes’ online calculator a while back and scratched down that information on to a random envelope that I carry in my purse (it also has info about creating a front walk way). Well we were in luck; their deck railing section was on sale for $10 (usually over $30)! You may be asking yourself “deck railing? I thought they were looking for gate materials.”  Well we decided that it would be way cheaper to get two of these deck sections and figure out later how to make a gate out of it, if all else failed we could have unassembled it for the materials.  For the life of me I can’t think of what we were there for, but we each grabbed a rail section (we had no cart because we weren’t planning on getting anything big) and headed to the check out.  That night we found out just how long something can be and still fit in Neill’s Altima with the backseats folded down—6 feet, whew.  

                The next night we went back for the rest of the materials for the gate:

• 2 6 feet long 4x4 posts (just the right length for my RAV4)

• Gate hardware (4 hinges, latch, cane)

• 4 bags of Quickcrete (I later returned 2)

Because we didn’t have a post hole digger and didn’t want to shell out the money for one, these materials got to hang out in the RAV4 for a few weeks.  Thankfully Neill’s wonderful grandparents had a post hole digger that we could borrow, so the next time Neill’s brother came to visit (close to mid/ end of July) he brought it to us.

                Now we had everything we needed to get this gate built.  I had decided that because I only wanted to have to buy 2 posts instead of more we were going to have two gates, one on each side that meet in the middle.  Currently I have no classes and only have to put in 20 hours at the Navy. So one day I came home in the afternoon and decided I would start figuring out where we would dig the post holes.  Of course this meant to me start digging one of the post holes. It is really hard to dig a hole so close to your house. I only got about a foot dug out and decided to go inside and take a break. Later when Neill got home, I wanted to show him my work so I brought him outside showed him the hole and began to show him how hard it was. Yes this was tricky of me; I got us to dig another couple of inches before Neill wanted to go back inside.  Later that evening around 10ish I realized that I had left the post hole digger outside and I didn’t want it to get rusty, so I went out to put it in the garage. Of course that hole was calling my name so I decided I would dig a little more until I became tired.  Well just about the time I was tired Neill decided to join me and finished digging the 2 foot hole. Tip: Use a sharpie marker to mark your (or your in-laws’) post hole digger every foot from the bottom so you can quickly see how deep your hole is.

                 I was so surprised to hear Neill ask if I wanted him to grab the Quickcrete. I guess there was no reason not to go ahead and set that post that night. Yes it was 10:30 PM on a week night, but we decided to finish the task. The next day I dug and set the other post and marked where the deck railing needed to be cut before Neill got home.  When he got home we cut the railing and using the hinges hung them from each of the posts. We used some of my yarn to give us a guiding line.  We used two different types of hinges - a set that closes automatically and a normal set (both looking the same). We didn’t think about how the automatic ones were so much stronger than the normal ones, and when we pulled out the brick we had holding the gate while we attached the hinges to the post the gate on the normal hinges sagged a little. Oh well, we got the hardware on and called it a night. I have a few ideas of how to fix this problem, but that will be another day. We were able to get a gate up in two weekday evenings, defiantly one of the quickest projects yet.   

Dog Run

        As you now know, we have two dogs which basically means that our backyard STINKS! Our backyard was one of the things we loved about this house, with all the trees around and English Ivy everywhere it felt like our own secret garden.  But it didn’t take long before our two dogs made it a waste land, literally. Shortly after, I decided we needed to do something about that. We first started with trying to pick up after them on a regular basis. I hated putting a plastic bag in the trash can for such a small thing, and it still seemed like it was so hard to find in our backyard. Not to mention that they both urinated right when they got out the back door so it smelled from that too. I would often think about putting a dog run in the back corner of our backyard (see exhibit A in picture) so that when I went out there I wouldn’t have to smell their business we could go outside and enjoy our backyard. The cost of fencing in a decent size dog run was way too much, and I wasn’t sure what my neighbors would think since it would be right next to their nice grilling area (drawing does not accurately represent their awesome grill).  Thankfully one day it hit me, we can pull up all the bricks on the side of the house and put a dog run in over there! It was a way better spot (see exhibit B in picture.  Even though a good section of the brick patio looked amazing we never saw ourselves hanging out over there because of the street noise (we live on a pretty busy road). The neighbor on this side of us doesn’t have much access to this side of her house because of her AC unit, so it shouldn’t be a bother to her. We decided that we could just make a gate from the house to the current fence which would be way less material therefore cost less. 

With this in mind we even went ahead and bought a gardenia and two honey suckle plants for our flowerbed right in front of this area to help with the smell (I can’t wait for these plants to start smelling good) from our indentured servant while she was still working at a home improvement store.  We also set to work on pulling up all the bricks. We would work at it for a couple of hours until we got bored, eaten up by mosquitos, and/or too tired to continue. This went on for days. I was lucky enough to have one of my little brothers come visit me for a week and he really wanted to do a project, so I set him to work on pulling up bricks. He quickly got tired, so it was left for us to finish another day.

Then one day I was using StumbleUpon and came across a website that was talking about how to make your own dog compost so I decided that would be our weekend project (and yes this was like a Thurs or Fri).  We actually finished that project in one weekend, although, I want to replace the plastic trash can lid with a wooden lid. About a month later we got the gate done in just two days.  On Friday I decided to switch from my current project of scrapping paint off a door to putting out pine straw just to have Drizzt decide he wanted to kick it all into one corner.

What is left to do:

Figure out what to do with all the bricks (front walkway, what else?)

Move the bricks

Lay down the rest of the pine straw

Replace plastic lid to dog compost

Stain gate?

Welcome to my home

In May of 2010 my husband and I bought our first house. Ever since we have talked about needing a blog to share this crazy ride with others, so here it is. Let me introduce the main characters of my future blog posts:

Neill and Melissa

Hi! My name is Melissa and I am currently a graduate student studying Industrial/ Organizational Psychology (work psychology). I work as a researcher at the Navy. I love working on our house and doing craft projects. Expect to see more of the latter on here.

Behind me there is my wonderful husband, Neill. We have been together since 2003 and married since 2008. He is an IT guy for the US Dist. Courts. He is super smart (I have actually given him an IQ test), but sometimes he does some of the silliest things. You will probably hear about his antics. Even though working on the house isn't one of his favorite things to do, he can learn how to do anything. Update: Sense the kitchen floors have been finished he is really on board with working on the house.

We are both from Louisiana, but moved to Tennessee for me to go to school. After living in our first apartment (in Louisiana, we rented a house from Neill's grandmother) for a year, we bought our first house. I'll have to post about that later (possibly multiple posts); that alone was an adventure.

Audi

Here is Audi, our first dog. He was left on the side of the road with his sister when they were only about 2 weeks old. A wonderful adoption group in Texas cared for them, and when he was 7 weeks old, we adopted him. With a lot of love he his has grown up, learned a number of tricks, and of course has some problems. We will save those for later.

Drizzt

When Audi was getting calmer and learning to behave, we started to look for a Boston Terrier to adopt and found Drizzt. Not exactly a Boston, but we fell in love. We knew if we didn't adopt him he would probably be euthanized, and he was so calm and quiet. We later found out that he freezes in unknown circumstances, and is a BALL of ENERGY when he is comfortable. His name was Rocco, but didn't respond to that, so I let Neill pick out a new name. He picked Drizzt based on a book where the character Drizzt was a part of a race that was hated and often evil, but Drizzt is a good guy, so it fit with him being an American Pit Bull Terrier. He really knew nothing, and we have taught him a lot, even "roll over" and "dead".

Our newest addition is our indentured servant.

That is my cousin, Allison, also from Louisiana. She was working at Lowes and getting very little art work done. So we offered to let her live in our guest room and work in our back porch area in exchange for a small amount of rent and her controlling our food budget. So she moved in at the beginning of the month and is basically a modern day indentured servant.

And last but not least is our current major project - our house.

Sorry for the dark and out of season picture but it was the only one I could find tonight, but don't worry you will see the good, bad, and ugly soon enough.

I hope you enjoy our journey and our past adventures.

Update: Here is one of the first pictures of our house when we were still looking at it.