Summer Projects

I have a list of books to read and many other summer projects lined up. Now whether I'll actually get to all of them is another question!

I usually like to read classic books during the summer. This year I seem to have a lot of kids books from the distant past that I intend to read. Then I also like fun books, scary books and the same with movies!

Here is my book list:

Classics...
The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Alice Thru The Looking Glass by L Carroll
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Walden by H D Thoreau
The Maine Woods by H D T
Cape Cod by H D T

I have a few books I need to finish too...
Duma Key by Stephen King
Holy Terror by Josephine Boyle
You On A Diet by Mehmet Oz
Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow

The fun books on my list are...
Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich
Wife by J E
Manhunt by J E
Naughty Neighbor by J E

The movies I want to watch are...
Chicken Run
Chicken Little (are you starting to see a pattern here?)
Jaws
Jaw 2
Jaws The Revenge
Children of the Corn
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Persuasion

We have tons of projects on the list too. We want to paint the shutters on our house. We have a pale yellow house and I have always loved the complimentary colors of yellow and purple. One year a while back, I decided I wanted purple shutters. I chose what appeared to be a dark eggplant purple, but after it was applied to the shutters, it was more of a grape Kool-aid purple. I’ve taken a lot of flack about that, but I sort of liked them! I guess it’s time to re-do them. Five years later. Haha. I think we’ll opt for Levi blue this time. I have some flower pots I want to match Here’s an old picture of the shutters, what do you think? Crazy color, eh?



Other projects include cleaning out the garden sheds, I hope we don’t need another dumpster to get rid of all the stuff!
Finishing the new patio is tops on Andy's list. This is Andy’s department and he is looking forward to having enough time to do this. He also wants to put in a new walkway around one of my rose beds. He loves to lay bricks in the ground to make hardscapes. He’s good at it too.

I need to re-do my rock gardens. The plants that were in them have mostly died and the rocks need to be re-positioned and new plants put in them. I think the rocks absorb a lot of heat and that tends to cook the plants over time. I have three rock gardens. Here are pictures of a couple of them in better days.




Needless to say, I won’t be moving the big rock, just planting new plants around it!

I want to make some new stepping stones to replace some of the bricks in the walkway in the rose garden. I love making them and they add interest to the path around my roses. You can see some of the stepping stones in the path now in this photo.



I plan to paint a sign for my chicken coop that says “Maison de Poulet” (Chicken House) Martha Stewart’s coop says “Palais de Poulet”…a bit fancy for my little coop! And while I'm painting, I have a pillar and a statue that I garbage-picked that I need to paint and place in my garden somewhere. I like garden ornaments as long as they are sort of hidden from view. I want people to have to look for them!

Have you made a list of books or any project plans for the summer?