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Seven random things:
Went out to check the veggie patch and pull a few green tomatoes to send to my mom. They are still off vagabonding in their RV and she loves fried green tomatoes. I have zukes and cukes all over the place. Wow. I put in a few extra plants just to be sure at least a few would take well, all of them took well! Also now that everything in there has matured, I am seeing my errors of where I planted and being able to maneuver around in that fenced space is getting more difficult. I can hardly wait for next year, now that I have learned these important lessons I have big plans!! Hubby is probably going to grumble about building more raised beds but if we get them up now I can work on the soil in them for next spring, right? And…still might be early enough to have a fall planting…more ideas!
My elephant ears are going crazy with all the rain and heat they are loving it! I think I will put in a few more next year; they really break up all that brick from the wall of the garage.
Will get up early tomorrow and get the lawn mowed and things spruced up outside, do the regular housekeeping when it is too hot outside. The house full is coming and I can hardly wait to see them all!! Two of the kids are leaving California this evening and should hit Arkansas Saturday night or Sunday morning. They are going to switch off and drive straight through. One more kid flies in on Sunday afternoon and my best buddy from Seattle gets in Monday night. I am so excited I haven’t been able to sleep. Like a kid on Christmas Eve.
The squirrels and I have worked out a great schedule with the feeding trough. They come for breakfast every morning and are gone the rest of the day. This allows me to fill it the night before and it’s all ready for them when they arrive. Thankfully it has kept them out of my herb pots and other flowers on the deck.
The coon has been coming nightly and I leave him a treat of peanuts and apple slices and he stays out of my bird feeders. He does continue to use the bird bath as his wash bowl, so that must be emptied and refilled every morning. Plan to camp out in the dark diningroom by the sliding glass door and watch for him Saturday night while I am waiting for the kids to arrive. Hopefully I can get some shots of him.
The chipmunk that I have been feeding at the back of my pond has planted his seed stashes all over my flower beds. I am still finding sunflower sprouts coming up all over the place. No more sunflowers in the front yard please! So sadly I have stopped feeding in that area of the yard.
The black and white brigade will get their baths and frontline tomorrow morning too. They need to be pretty and clean when their kids arrive. Rob to this day goes nuts when he hears a VW Beetle drive by. He is so sure that his girl is coming to see him. I feel so sad for him when he finally realizes it’s not his Shannon coming. Now we are all just counting the hours till they arrive!I hadn’t watered in a couple of days because we were supposed to get lots of rain. It only spit on us so after my photography class last night, I ran around trying to get things watered before it got too dark. We got a little shower this morning, but nothing that really watered anything.
A couple of my dahlias were leaning over pretty bad from the weight of the blooms. Decided to go ahead and cut the full blooms and bring them to the office to enjoy. There are still plenty of buds on the plants and now they are not leaning over, even staked.
My pond lilies are blooming non stop this year. Had a total of six blooms last week and this week there are four new ones. Monday night, I transplanted the chameleon, cannas, and one of the pond grasses that were bulging in their pots. They look better for it already. Lot’s of leafs on the lotus but no blooms yet there. The hyacinths have bloomed a few times also.
Going to try my hand at pickling peppers. Got some jars and found a recipe on line. I have banana peppers coming out my ears and I hate to see things wasted. I am hoping to have a ripe tomato by this weekend. I have been harvesting cherry tomatoes, but the first of the big ‘uns is almost ready!! Should have two really nice zukes to grill on July 4th too.
Making plans for the kids and friend when they come next week. The fourth will be spent at home, cooking, eating, visiting and enjoying their company. My Shannon and my friend Cat enjoying cooking as much as I do, so we will be fixing all kinds of goodies to enjoy throughout the day and week. They are both looking forward to coming and harvesting from my garden and herb pots.
Have begun laying out on paper just how I want to design my two largest beds. I will keep buying marked down perennials that I want to add and look forward to making them what I really want.
My Saturday started out just the way I wanted it, I had bought some marked down cone flowers and brown eyed susans at Lowes on the way home Friday night. Got up had my tea and began preparing the places I planned on putting them. After getting them in, I did some weeding and clean up around the outside. We have a house full coming for Fourth of July week and I want everything looking nice, so I had my whole list to work on all week. Ryan helped put up the last of the decorations while I finished up watering and weeding.
Hubby’s cousin had come recently and spent a few days with us on Memorial weekend and happened to buy a new pickup. He left his old one at our house and planned to swing by sometime soon and pick it up. No problem. I asked DH to move it off the back drive way so that I could blow off the debris from the rain and clean up the back. He called his cousin to just check about something with the gear shift. C
Cousin informs DH that not to worry, his mom, dad, brother, the granddaughter and the dog are on their way from Georgia to pick the truck up!! No notice, no phone call to ask if we were busy, no courtesy whatsoever!! Just planned to bring a car full of bodies and show up on my door step unannounced!! I was soooo peeved. DH took one look at my mood and began cleaning house. I am still fuming at the lack of courtesy. I would not have minded them coming, really. But they could have called first!!! We would have not known at all if hubby hadn’t called the cousin. Am I wrong??!!??
So now I have three beds that I have to strip and wash before the INVITED company comes. Plus all the stuff I was planning to due this weekend before his aunt showed up on my door step. Okay…I vented and am better now.
My newest daylilies that I had ordered are going to bloom soon!!! I am really surprised. I put in those marked down perennials and steaked one dahlia that was getting heavy. The veggie patch is doing wonderful. I have about eight good size tomatoes blushing up and loads of green ones. Should have a few zukes to grill out on the 4th and lot’s of banana peppers. The bell peppers are swelling and it will be no time at all for them. Next year there are no ifs ands or buts, we must have a bigger veggie patch. Picked some blackberries before the critters got them and had them I my cereal. Everything else is just watering, monitoring and deadheading.
Thanks for listening to my rant gang! Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!
We have been battling the bushy tailed beasties over my birdfeeders and flower pots over the last year, recently to the point of building and installing a feeding trough on the deck just for them. Yes, they can be a frustration, but they are very entertaining and give the dogs and the cat some fun as well. It seemed that since the trough went up we had settled into a regular routine. I fill the trough in the morning and sit with my cup of tea and watch and as a wave of squirrels starts rolling toward my deck across the tree tops. Though some are terribly mean and refuse to share with their fellows (which warrants a visit from a border collie), most share nicely and they have been good about leaving my pots and birdfeeders alone. Until two days ago…
I went out to the deck to slop the trough and low and behold my full “last night” birdfeeders were emptied and my hanging strawberry had been stripped of ripe fruit. Grrrr. I figured I had a rogue and that Rob and I would need to teach this rake some manners. The regular crew came for breakfast and I didn’t think anymore about it.
The next morning I got up earlier than normal and walked through the kitchen looking out the door to the deck without turning on a light. There on the railing was a masked bandit helping himself to great paw-fulls of bird seed. He then proceeded to the birdbath to wash his breakfast before eating it. The rogue had been caught in the act. Rob sat watching in utter fascination at this new creature come to HIS deck. Setting Rob on squirrels is one thing, having him tangle with a 30lb raccoon just doesn’t seem like a good idea, so needless to say Rob was not given the chance to try herding coons. By the time I got my camera, the thief had shimmied down the post of the deck and went on his way.
Okay, things are getting crazy now that I am feeding the entire wild population of critters in our little neck of the woods. The squirrel trough is now emptied at dark and the birdfeeders are brought into the house for the night. Hopefully, this will cause the bandit to go elsewhere for his midnight snack raids. Oh gosh, I hope he doesn’t decide to go fishing in my pond!!!
Mine was yesterday…I am kind of like Garfield, I hate Mondays. Work was just plain Monday hectic, chased my tail all day at the office. On the way home, hubby murdered a squirrel in the road. Okay, okay, I know there are tons of them and this one won’t make a dent, but he could have slowed down and not hit it at all. Let’s just say that I let him know how I felt and he won’t be doing that again with me in the car. Really, he did feel bad about it and kept apologizing. I told him to tell it to the squirrel.
We got home to find that the murder victim’s friends had pulled over and chewed up my sunflowers. No real tragedy there, but the fallen stock knocked a bloom off my clematis. Went out to the veggie patch to find a major broken limb on one of my tomatoes. We had a pretty good storm yesterday and I am sure the wind took it down.
Next, I was walking around the pond to see my latest lily bloom and I think the murderer rigged one of the flagstones at the edge of the pond to try to get rid of his only witness to the crime. You know how everything moves in slow motion in a fall? Well that is what it was like, seemed to take forever! The flagstone landed on my foot and it took quite a bit of slipping and sliding to get myself up outta there. Luckily, there were no floating fish bodies, just my big old behind taking a dip. Of course I really got razed by hubby…grrrrr.
Took a shower to wash off the pond scum, made dinner, took two Excedrin migraine and went to bed. Note: when you need to take an aspirin for the pain caused by a flagstone that hit your foot as you fell in your pond, DON’T use migraine formula at bed time…it contains caffeine. So on top of the rest of my lovely Monday, I did not sleep at all. Hope y’all had a better day.
We got two of the three decks stained this weekend. Yippee!! We are almost there and will be able to sit down and enjoy it.
I repotted three of the pots on the deck that were looking kind of sad after being ravished by the squirrels before the trough went up. I planted them all in reds, whites and blues for the fourth. Once the upper deck is stained I will start putting up the decorations. The kids arrive on the first and my best friend arrives on the third, so all should be ready when they get here.
My veggie garden is doing great. I have little zucchinis and cukes, loads of banana peppers and the bell peppers have finally decided to hang on to some of their fruit. And…tomatoes galore!! Ate my first ripe cherry tomatoes this weekend and I have a few large tomatoes starting to blush. My two later bearing types are blooming and one has tiny maters too.
The mulch in the upper flower bed was getting pretty thin so I added another layer to that this weekend. I dug a hole there to plant some ornamental grass that was potted on the deck. I was surprised how dry the ground was just a few inches below the surface. We have had lots of rain but apparently not as much as the trees need. We watered the grass and that bed heavily. Don’t want the trees to steal water from all the sod we just put in.
My elephant ears are going crazy. Wow, how fast they grow! The new dappled willow is doing really well. I am so please with it. The rest of the pond has filled in great. The lily pads are all about to bloom again and the water is crystal clear. All the new fish half doubled in size!
We also have some new residents to the pond. A family of chipmunks is living in the back of the upper falls. I put some seed out for them and got a few pictures of them stuffing their cheeks.
My white clematis bloomed again and the small red clematis, I noticed had opened this morning. The dahlias that made it through the freeze are all blooming and I will post some pix of those in my photos as soon as I get home tonight. They are huge the purple and white one is about 6 inches across and the yellow and red is a good eight inches.
Everything in the rest of the flower beds are doing well and I am going to start planning for next year and really do things right. Most of this spring was more about instant gratification. Now that I have had time to stand back and look at things the ideas are popping and I have begun putting it on paper.
Now if I could just get rid of the dog vomit slime mold in my shade bed I would be a happy person!
We spent yesterday out floating Big Sugar Creek in the kayaks. The day was perfect and there were tons of wild flowers in bloom. I took a cheap throw away camera and hope the pictures turned out well. I was not about to risk the Canon out in the water.
I did take some pix around the house with the REAL camera. I posted them in my photo album under June Flowers. Hope you all enjoy.
Summer is coming on fast here. We have been pushing toward the 90’s all week. Expecting severe storms tonight with wind and hail. Hope things don’t get too bad.
Finally beat the squirrels to some of the ripe strawberries; they were few but very yummy. The squirrel trough is working wonders and they haven’t been in my pots all week!! Of course I had to make a run to Wally World for more seed. But that’s okay. (posted a photo in my profile of the trough)
My best friend and two of the three Calif kids are coming for July 4th week!! Our younger daughter can’t make it because of summer college classes. (boohoo) I am so excited and have begun planning for the week. When I planted the petunia bed I was hoping they would be coming so I put in white, blue, red, red & white and blue & white petunias. I am still the crazy holiday decorator and the kids will get a kick out of it. I have been picking up little things here and there to decorate with also. Flags and buntings and patriotic garden stakes. I am going to replant the pots and baskets on the deck with red, white and blue this weekend so that they are well established for the party. I can’t wait to see my friend and the kiddos!!
The decks still are not restained! Every time we go to start on them it rains again. At this rate they will never get done. Got them cleaned and sanded but can’t stain until they are completely dry for a day at least. I am ready to give up and just paint away.
We took the black and white brigade for a long walk last night. Old Buddy is noticeably slowing down and that kind of worries me. He is a dear old soul and I knew at his age taking him into our pack would not be forever. At least he is loved and comfortable and will enjoy what is left of his life. Think we will go for a check up just to make sure he is doing okay. As long as he let’s me know life is still worth living we will let him enjoy what is left of it. (You can read Buddy’s story under my profile.)
The veggie garden grows and grows. I have one mater starting to blush! I can almost taste them as I check the plants for more fruit. I know it sounds crazy but I love the smell of tomato plants!! Lots of squash blooms and noticed a few cuke blooms last night. Got the rest of my bean starts out last night when I got home. Noticed that one bell pepper plants dropped three peppers. The whole stem of the peppers were yellowed and laying at the base of the plant. I am hoping it is only the result of the pounding rain we had and not something else. The banana peppers are all doing well though. Next year definitely calls for a larger veggie garden, that is all there is to it.
Harrison paid a visit this morning. He roosted on the tomato trellis and sat watching over my garden. I thanked him and wished him a good day before I left for the office. Couldn’t ask for a better scare crow or squirrel patrol than a red shouldered hawk!
The battles with the bushy tailed beasties over my bird feeders and potted herbs on the deck continued until this weekend. I had been putting feed and bird seed on the railing for them to try and deter the ravages to my herb pots. The mess they made with the seed shells on the deck was driving hubby bonkers. While I was out in the garden he went to work on a solution to our problem.
He built them a squirrel trough! It’s a six foot by six inch platform with a 1 inch rail all the way around. The whole contraption is hinged so that it can be dumped out for cleaning and has a guard chain so it doesn’t flop all the way down. The trough sits on long shelf brackets on the outside of the deck railing so any shells fall down to the ground. There is a steep slope down to the lake on that side of the house so no harm cleaning it out there. It works great!! I can fill it with enough feed and seeds to keep them happy all day and out of my pots!! The jays love it because they are too big for my bird feeders and the titmice love it because they can pick all the peanuts out of the seed. Everyone is happy, especially Hubby who doesn’t have to go blow the shells off the deck everyday.
Gave the maters a feed yesterday. I was up to 53 tomatoes but there are too many to count now. I love it!! Yummy! Squashes have blooms all over and the cukes are trying there best to start too. Pulled out the last of the lettuce and spinach, it was pretty much done and our last pounding rain did them no favors. Peppers are starting to get a little bigger. Now that we have sun and warm maybe they will think about growing, you can see the little peppers on the plants, they just haven’t done much with all the rain we have had. Going to put in more beans where the lettuce and spinach was, I have some starts that I will put out this weekend.
Got all the containers watered last night because we are up in the 90’s today. Thank goodness it is not humid yet. My daylilies I put in a couple of weeks ago now are doing wonderful; one that was about a three fan size is thinking about blooming, it is called “Go Figure”. The others are all late bloomers. I have a Masquerade Ball daylily that is getting ready to bloom, I put it in right before the freeze and it made it. All three elephant ears are up at the back of the pond. The leafs are huge and it really filled in that side in front of the garage. The new willow that took the place of the Japanese maple we lost is doing great. Lot’s of new stems and foliage.
And best of all my dinner plate dahlias are all about to bloom!!! I have had to stake a few of them they were getting so tall. But soon they will all be flowering. I will take some photos as soon as they do. The sunflowers have all bloomed. I think I will plant some more of those on the hill side just for the birds. They really are pretty.
The shade bed has really filled in. I was watering a container near there last night and notice this fungus growing on the mulch. Looked kinda yellowish and spongy. I gave is a squirt of the hose and the whole thing exploded in a big brown cloud!! So great, I can just imagine the whole shade bed is going to be covered with this fungus from all the spores I released by hosing the thing down. So how do I get rid of that????
Two of the three elephant ears I planted are up and growing like crazy. My white clematis has two buds on it and the red one has finally decided to grow. The annual bed with the sun flowers, petunias and zinnias is filling in more everyday. If I could just keep the neighbor’s sheltie from doing his business there I think it would do better.
The hostas in the shade bed are all putting up buds and will flower soon. The coleus are huge and have filled in wonderfully. All the impatience are thick with flowers and the calla lily now has five blooms on it.
My dinner plate dahlias all have buds now and I can’t wait to see them bloom!! Lion Bane, Larkspur, Sweet William, Columbines, Coral Bells are all going great in my woodland bed.
The veggie patch is my favorite place. Checked last night and my squash all have blooms or buds and the cukes are not far behind. I pick four beans and ate them right there last night, oh so sweet. My two later tomatoes are now blooming and will add to the high count of maters very soon. Think my lettuce and spinach are just about done and I have some more bean starts that I am going to put in their place. So I will pull out the last of those greens this weekend and get that area ready for the beans. Need to start looking for some canning or pickling recipes for banana peppers, I am going to have a ton of those. I love pickled peppers.
Hubbers cut the lawns last night and watered a few of my pots that were looking sad after the first sunny day we’ve had in a while. The new willow likes its new digs at the back of the pond. I sent photos to our vagabonding parents and they loved all the work we have done so far. I will try to get on later tonight and post some update photos.
Started my compost heap but with all the rain we have had this week it still isn’t getting warm. What have I done wrong? I layered browns and greens just like the book says, should I give it a stir already? I shredded leafs that I used really well and added a layer of sticks at the bottom for air. Then in went a layer of grass clippings and deadheaded flowers, a layer of dried leafs, then more of the same and so on, with a squirt of water. But then it has rained all week also, is that the problem?
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