The Porch Progresses, slowly.

This is, in fact, the project that never ends. There is a small bit of light at the end of the tunnel, however. This past weekend included setting the stone atop the stair walls and beginning the shingling of those walls.  We had to remove the temporary steps to do that.

The floor has two coats of sealer and three coats of oil.

Getting there....still need some trim.

Walls, almost done!

Stone, mortared into place and everything!

The blue thing is our foul weather canopy, lowered for the night so it doesn't blow away.

So, looks good, right? Almost done? HAH! Now we just need to put in the real steps (tigerwood treads, painted risers), strip the old columns, replace missing trim pieces on them, varnish the ceiling, replace trim around the ceiling, find and install a porch swing, and figure out what colors we're going to use.  And oh yeah, we still don't have a railing.......

Again with the quilting.

Since this has been gifted, now I can show it to you!
For my brand new niece, Sophia, shown here giving her best impression of a grumpy gnome:

Her room is painted a lovely shade of green, so I knew I had to use that.  Plus, of course, no quilt from me would be quite right without a bit of orange, so here it is.

Front

Back

Detail of the front

And, of course, the requisite Hippo, whose name is Henrietta. Every child needs a hippo of their very own! :)

 Sophia, right before we left for the airport in the dark: yes, that snuggly fleece thing is very much too big - I think it just adds to the cuteness.

Things still blooming in October.

All right, first things first - this Agastache is INSANE. It's been blooming non-stop, attracting hummingbirds and smelling wonderful since June. June, people. It's now mid-October. That's four months. That's cool.

A different agastache here, fronted by some bright red Salvia. These were both experimentals, but I have a feeling we'll be planting more.

Next up we have the Evening Primrose. The cooler nights seem to have killed off the aphids that LOVE this plant, and in response it has started blooming again. Nice.One lone Echinacea blossom. I have a hard time deadheading these during the summer, which would cause them to bloom longer, because all the little tiny birds love the seeds. So I sacrifice blooms for food. The whole garden is pretty much like that. Plus, seedheads are interesting during the winter.
This is a Solanum of some sort - from the same family as tomatoes and deadly nightshade. It's an annual - we planted one outside the fence last year, this year we had a bunch come up, including this one, which is inside the fence in the middle of the gravel patch. It's about 4 1/2 feet tall.

Verbena rigida, still going strong. This is another one that just goes and goes and goes. Planted in a tiny triangle of dirt surrounded on all sides by concrete, it's enthusiastic and cheerful.

Pineapple Sage, another Salvia. This one isn't too hardy, and it doesn't start blooming until October, but it's gorgeous, so we put up with it.

This picture is mostly to show you that we are still working on the porch, because the fuschia came with the house, and I'm not real crazy about it. It survives, though, so who am I to dig it up?

Zinnias! I put this in to annoy Mark - he's zinnaphobic, apparently. What a poo-head.

These are just beginning to bloom, and frankly, they're a little early. Mahonia 'Winter Sun' usually starts blooming in late November at the earliest. Last year the blooms got wiped out by our ridiculous cold snap in December, so this year perhaps is compensation. Hummingbirds like this, too!

And Rosemary, because the freaking Rosemary never stops blooming around here.

The Miscanthus is just beginning to send up its seed heads, they are lovely in the sun, but on the whole, we planted too many and they got too big. Lesson learned.

Cosmos - part of our sunflower wall, they were sort of shaded out, and are just now seeing the sun.

One thing to be said for Seattle, gardening can happen all year round!