soaphouse's Blog
soaphouse's posts about: dogs
Feb 23, 2008 | 4:46 PM PST
Tags: compost , owl , herron , veggie beds , dogs , raised bed , weeding , weeds , rain , drought
(I hope this post goes through ok...with all the weird stuff going on with the site today...)
The last few days we have had a good steady rain. Great for our drought situation! Of course, I have gotten used to doing something in the yard most every afternoon. So, instead...I had some nice cups of coffee on the front porch and watched the rain :)
One morning, when I woke up...I noticed an owl perched on the fence by the creek. We hear owls a lot around here...and my husbad has named the one we hear, Norbert. Maybe this was Norbert showing himself :) . A little later, I also saw some sort of giant bird walking across the creek (might have been a white herron?) I couldn't catch a picture of him though. Here is a little shot of the owl:
It dried up enough today for my hubby to go get some loads of compost for the newly built veggie beds! Hooray!!!
And, in case there was any question as to the necessity of the chicken wire surrounds:
HAH! needless to say...the doggies had a fun day in the garden too!
While my husband was picking up the loads I also took advantage of the wet ground and did my first (of many, I am sure) spring weeding sessions! It felt good to get that done. We got most of the beds full and just need to finish up one bed. Yeah! Gotta love progress!
Jul 26, 2007 | 6:22 PM PST
Tags: compost , bed , dogs , rain , hail , dirty
My lovely hubby went to go get more of the city compost today for my new bed. This is a process that he is not very fond of and getting him to do it usually involves some sort of begging and bribery. I can' t say that I blame him as it is a very messy and stinky job. To prove his point he had me take this pict for all the world to see how dirty he gets:
As you can see...the dogs don't seem to mind so much getting dirty:
We got this unloaded just in time for an afternoon hail storm! It was mostly rain, but there was pea sized hail mixed in and SO great to watch from the front porch!
A nice good drink for my newly planted goodies from yesterday! Hopefully, I will start planting up the new bed this weekend!
Jul 19, 2007 | 4:08 PM PST
Tags: rain , flood , water , rapids , creek , before , after , dogs
We have been in a drought all summer and I have had to stay up on watering and do it during the restricted time allotment. But, since last week we have been getting some consistent afternoon showers. A lot of them are even major thunderstorms that are great to watch from the front porch. Its just fabulous! The only thing is that it makes everything grow really fast...including the weeds, so I am really having to stay on top of that!!
Most of you have read my entries about the creek clean out project and I have mentioned how we are on a flood plane and our backyard changes a lot in a heavy downpour. We had one today, so here are some picts:
- Before Rain:
- After Rain:
- Before:
- After:
- More Rain...
- Look at those rapids!
- Remnants of the flood:
- The veggie beds are raised and made out of cedar posts and metal that is cemented in the ground.
- When I plant behind the creek, I will have to plant when no rain is forcasted so that the plants don't wash away! And I will have to plant items that have big root systems.
- I can't put too much effort into mulching or grass growing because it would all get washed away!
- I have taken note of where water lingers after the rains and planted things that are tolerant of this.
- Since I have been cleaning out the creek, after each heavy rain, I have to go pull trash out that has gotten caught on branches while rushing by
- And, one of the most important things I learned today...the rottie and chihuahua really like rolling in the puddles...don't let them out after the big rain! LOL!!!
