Yard Work so far this spring

So I thought I would share some of what I've done so far this spring.

Last year we had removed 3 arborvitae trees from this corner of the house.  This spring, it's taken me about a month, with a little help from Rob .. to clean the rocks, lay down rubber mats under the trash cans, move the edging by those mats out to make it better. and regraded the ground in the corner, so that it will slope away from the house instead of to the house.  Here is what it looks like now.  Still needs a little raking and putting down more grass seed right on the lawn part here, but it's much better than what it was.

And here are the two pots that I put in the corner to add some interest and camouflage the drain pipe a little bit.

And then I added a couple of large pots around the patio. Still need a lot of work on the rocks to clean them. but I'll get to it eventually. 

Here are my two pots of herbs ...

And a few pots with flowers that I just planted up tonight.

 This one below, will hopefully have some morning glory climbing up the trellis ...
with petunias around the edge.

My bulb bed is getting ready to bloom ... Don't have flowers for the large blue pot yet .. still working on that.

And here is one of our trees in full bloom tonight ...

I have purchased a few tomatoes and green peppers this year.  I'll try to get these in the garden tomorrow night after work. There just wasn't time tonight before it got dark.

A Little Catch Up

I really haven't written in awhile, and no good excuse except not knowing what to write about.

I figured you might enjoy seeing a few recent photos ... From the last couple of days we have ..

This morning's harvest.

It really isn't that much.  The garden is pretty pitiful .. I have like 10 summer squash/zucchini plants, as well as a dozen tomato plants and half a dozen green pepper plants .. You can see NO peppers ... only a few little tomatoes .. and those are 99% from the volunteer plants and not from the ones I planted!  Green beans are doing fair ... but not the production I'd expect from the amount of plants I have ... and two cucumbers ..   With the exception of the green beans and the summer squash .. the other plants are very small .. tomato plants are minuscule compared to a normal summer ... I watered this morning .. and it's supposed to get hotter this week - so hopefully that will help things grow a bit ...

Here's a photo of my orchid with all three buds open... very pretty....

And here are three new items for the garden that Rob and I selected yesterday ... Aren't they cute?

A crochet project I finished .. a baby afghan.

Some roses Rob bought me a week or so ago ...

Not a great picture - but decent.  That's Rob standing behind them.

That's about it for now ... :)  See YA !

ORCHID!!!!

I haven't written in awhile, but I though I should share this with you.

We received an orchid from dh's dad as a house warming present a couple of years ago ... and it was beautiful.  I hadn't been able to get it to bloom again .. but I repotted it earlier this summer, and gave it a wash of fertilizer .. and guess what .. it's bloomed!  Here is a picture of it as the first flower opened :)
Isn't it beautiful?

Theater Flowers and Garden

You may know that I volunteer at Memories on occasion.  I just finished up helping out as Stage Manager for "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks".  Here is a shot on the last night of the Director and the actor/actress :)  They did a great job and I'm glad I was a part of it.

This has been a really bad year for getting the garden off. The best of the bunch are the pots I planted with purchased flowers.

 The following picture is of a tiered pot that I also used purchased flowers for ... if you look at the bottom, there are three plants in that tier.  Two wave petunias and a verbena ... Well, the rabbit got to the wave petunias ... but I'm happy to say they are growing back .. just may be the end of summer before they bloom for me!  Ah well .. such is life, right?

Just a couple of weeks ago we took out two 'arbs' that were against the house on the edge of the patio.  It looks so much better without them.  I'll miss the robin that nested in the one closest to the house .. but we really like the more openness it gives us.

As I was mowing this side of the house this morning, I was struck by how pretty the red & greenish yellow & white were ... It's a bit overgrown .. needs trimming .. but it's pretty.

The really sad part of my yard is the vegetable garden.  It's in the 'valley' part of the yard, where it stays very wet and cooler, and the plants just haven't gotten much of a start ... Here's my raised bed that we put in last year .. I've planted carrots and green beans here ... I've replanted the beans a couple of times. (Today I put more seeds in the open spots)  It's growing .. but so slowly ....

And this is the large garden ... From closest to the camera to furthest away ... tomatoes & green peppers, green beans, corn and summer squash and some cucumbers as well.  These were all planted over a month ago and they've barely grown at all .. It's just been too cool and wet for them to grow .. I'm seeing some growth, but again .. so slow.

This weekend is supposed to be hot .. so hopefully that will kick start the plants to get some growth on.

Boys have I got a lot of photos for you today! :)

Okay, starting where we left off ;)
Memorial Day weekend, we where on our way to northern Iowa, and had stopped over near the WI/IA border so we could visit Wyalusing State park.  After that visit, we went and spent a few days at my parents.  While there, we were able to spend a little bit of time visiting with my Grandpa.  He is 96 years old (almost 97).  I thought this photo of my boys and I with him turned out pretty good.

 While at my parents, and while chatting or watching tv, I made several water bottle holders.  Here are what I made. They are both for the smaller bottles, and for larger bottles as well. 

 I had previously made a few at a women's craft day at my church.  The ones I had left from that day are here:

 I actually took a few of the small sized ones to the WI Museum of Quilts &Fiber Arts today for them to sell in their gift shop. 

The last week of school saw Joel doing a World Showcase for his class. It was similar to a science fair except each group of kids did a display on a specific country.  Joel's team did Greece.

 Then after Memorial Day was Rob & I's 19th anniversary.  He surprised me with these roses. :)  That's like 3 times this year he's bought me flowers .. :) 

 I also was able to cut a few daisies from the yard.  This is from a plant that I brought from the place in Iowa.  I had actually started that plant from seed.  So it's traveled with me.. sort of.

 A close up of the roses.

 We had some baby grackles in the yard.  They are annoying little things.  Always crying for their parents! :)

 A mourning dove sitting quietly. 

 Here's a bush I have in the yard as well. I'm not sure what this one is called either.  But it's pretty.

 Rob also finally relented and let us purchase a firepit :)  Here is a picture of our first fire :) It's also using wood that I had trimmed from around the yard and had saved. (It's last summer's wood - but it was still a bit smoky.)

 We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows.  Here's a couple of photos of Seth and Rob enjoying the 'dogs.

 Joel had been the first one to eat.  So he was off exploring around the trees.  I caught him really quick before he could run away :)

 It didn't take too long before the fire burned down to coals.  It was short, but it was very nice to be able to enjoy roasted marshmellows. :)

 Here's a quick photo of Peaches.  She likes lookign outside.

 I tried a new recipe. This is Strawberry Cream Puff dessert.  I got it from this website.

 It tasted pretty good.  I was going to use fresh strawberries we had, but some were nearly bad .. so I decided to play it safer and use the strawberries to make a strawberry sauce.  Turned out pretty good - I could have added more sugar, Joel liked it, but Seth said it was too sour.

Here's a bloom that just opened up recently .. It's an iris that came from our house in Iowa .. and before that it was an iris from my sister's yard. :)  Isn't it wonderful when flowers can bring back memories :)

 Not sure what this plant is either .. we have several of them.  The picture really doesn't do it justice.  The leaves are a deep burgandy red, and the flowers are white puffs... interesting!

 I purchased a few flowers at Walmart to plant in the yard and in pots, etc.  Below is one that went into the ground into a hole. 

 A flowering potentilla bush.

Right in the front of our yard is a single rose bush.  Here is a picture of the buds. 

I love how the rose bloomed:)  Several buds opened up at once, it's very pretty!

Joel coming home on the last day of school.

I decided to use an old roasting pan that I had and put some of the purchased flowers in it.  Thought it turned out ok.  I put holes in the lid, then put the lid in the base and planted in the lid.  What do you think?

 Rob and I drove to Sheboygan last weekend.  Saw a couple of birds.  Here's a sparrow of some sort. 
My best guess is Savannah Sparrow. it was in the grassy/weedy spot near the parking lot on the shore of Lake Michigan. ( I was looking at this again, and I'm 99.9% sure it's a female Red Winged Blackbird. )

 A Mallard.

 Some Gulls. Not sure what type of gull.

This beautiful sunset taken from our driveway.

And finally - the iris that I transplanted from the side yard to the front yard.
Beautiful color, don't you think?

A better shot of the roaster planter and the flowers in it.

And that's about it for now! :)