Thank you everybody for the wonderful comments! I feel for all of you that are having snow and ice. Please be careful it has been nice in WI. We are getting up to the high 20's so I think I will try to get out and get some sun and play in the snow for a while..LOL Build a snowman I try to make at least one a year...LOL Brandy those are tiger lillies they grow wild here. But they can be bought. I think they need deep cold in order to bloom. My ma in Ca loves lillies and cant grow them not enough cold for them. I could be wrong of course in your area. I gave the bulbils away as soon as they ripen. I think they have to be sown right away. It takes 4 years to bloom from the bulbils. I will be breaking that clump up this fall for trading bulbs.....Bulbs bloom right away if they are the right size.... :)

ali-b, I personally use the back gate to get to the composting area, which is actually in the front yard, tucked behind that massive piece of rock (which is something like 40' by 30'), and the lawn mower comes through that gate since it's the largest one. Otherwise, though, no one uses that gate because we have several others that lead to the barn, pool, paths, etc. I agree about tying the potager to the house somewhat, and may use stepping stones for that purpose. I really can't decide about the "entrance" to the potager...it's either the north side, which faces the entertaining area, or the west side, which faces the house. Both have pros and cons...from the north side you would enter right into the backs of my tomato trellises, which isn't going to be the prettiest view to choose. From the west side, it would be the prettiest view, but it's easy to cramp up that fairly narrow space between the potager and the house if I'm not careful. I'm really waiting to add more structure until after I get the beds filled (hopefully today) and planted. I think it will come together, maybe not right away, but something will jump out at me and just feel right! Lisa, thanks so much! I don't really think it's grand, per se, but it is a blessing to have all the space. Well, blessing and a curse...it's a lot to keep up with, especially with twin toddlers who require my attention 90% of the time ;) With regard to the soil--to be honest, I had originally planned to do the square foot garden soil mix (Mel's mix), but I had nowhere near enough homemade compost so would have had to buy that, in addition to peat moss and vermiculite. The cost would have been astronomical, and since we'd already spent a fat chunk of money on the gravel and the composite lumber and renting a tiller to help us take down the hillside, etc., when the 2 cu ft bags of garden soil went on sale at Home Depot, I said the heck with it and had them deliver 2 pallets of it. I am adding some vermiculite but nowhere near 33% as Mel suggests. I really would have preferred to stay totally organic (this is Miracle-Grow garden soil) but in addition to being cheaper, the bags are sooooo much easier to handle than having a huge truckload of loose soil dumped off the driveway. It really was largely a function of limited time, limited manpower, and manageability vs. cost. It turns out to have been the right choice, because the death march necessary to bring the 60 or so loads of gravel to the potager from the driveway (about 2 acres away, LOL) was seriously horrible. On the bright side, I sure got a workout.

Hi Trail! The thoughts we have about ourselves & others & events completely shapes our reality, defines our world. Hell, stress, misery, pain, suffering is created by demanding reality be something other than it is. Besides, whatever we resist, persists. That doesn't mean we can't move out of a situation into another. Peace or pain is predicated entirely upon HOW are we going to make the journey. We are stuck in the mud. We don't want to be. So, we needn't stay stuck in the mud because that is "what is." We work to get ourselves out! But what is our state of mind, what thoughts about being stuck are we stimulating as we pull ourselves out? We will be more effective & will suffer much, much less if rather than cursing, blaming, ranting at the mud, we just accept that we're stuck in it & put our energy into getting out of it! It's important to note that thoughts come & go. Any thought that enters the mind is harmless unless...we believe it. It's attachment to a thought that can make us miserable. We can attach to certain thoughts for years, never challenging them or questioning them...for years, for a lifetime! When we suddenly see something differently, the pain is released & we are tranquil. Did anything outside of us change? No. Just our thoughts. Life is internal. Very powerful.

It is Newburyport. That first picture makes it look much darker than it is. I can take another pic of the island if you want to see. Here is a desk painted in Newburyport. Better representation. A little off, but you can tell it isn't as dark as Hale Navy. I love Newburyport.