Where have I been?
I have been here!
This is my first attempt at a Youtube video that is my own. Comments? Want future videos? Let me know.
Tag: gardening
camouflage
Can you see me?
No?
How about now?
This Eastern Garter snake is non venomous and a pest predator. I enjoyed seeing it hanging out behind my new herb bed. I have (had?) a resident vole that moved in and stayed for the past three months. Although, I haven’t seen the Garter snake or the vole for a couple of weeks… 🙂
Learn more about Eastern Garter snakes: CLICK HERE
All wounds heal given time
Remember this?
No? OK, you can read about it HERE
This is solid oak and we couldn’t even give it away for firewood!
Sad.
Well, after 10 years, and four tries to get a lawn going, we finally paid someone to get the job done! The result?
We have a lawn!
The Log pile is gone! We had to pay the gardener to haul it away.
This is going to be a load of work this summer.
We’ll need to eradicate the grubs,
To chase out the moles,
To stop the little dog
from digging big holes!
And Evermore we will have to mow, mow, mow. I think I like Tootlepedal’s lawn better. It is a perfectly mowed postage stamp of short, green, turf, and all surrounded by hedges and gardens. LOOK HERE about half way down the page. He and his wife are always doing something to make it gorgeous and bird worthy.
Why did we do this again? Oh yeah, because the dogs need a lawn so I don’t have a new layer of mud, leaves and dirt on my floors every day.
Now here is a funny thing; growing the lawn successfully has brought on a desire to garden again. I have begun in this corner and will expand it bit by bit.
You see that gazing globe? I have had it for maybe 20 years and never put it out when we moved here. I should have because I really like to look at it, but I was afraid that the wind would blow it over, or a tree branch would smash it. What a waste it has been to own a lovely thing and then leave it wrapped up in the well house for safe keeping. I have taken measures to try to keep it wind worthy. I placed a bit of rebar through the center of the pedestal and pounded it deeply into the ground. The portion that stuck up through the center of the glass ball is well padded and helps to keep everything safe and steady. Now it puts a smile on my face every time I see it.
The grass is always greener where you can actually grow it.
What has spring induced you to do in the garden?
Playing Catch-up: notes on life here and on the mountain
Spring came to the Mountain Farmlet and left.
Summer brought tall grass,
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- You can’t tell it, but the grass is almost 4 feet tall in some places
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- Trees along the back: gone (this is where you can now see straight through the length of the property.
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- I mowed all around the house and the outbuildings
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- And lastly I mowed a wide path to the woodland trail.
Insects,
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- A Button bush plays host to butterflies…
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- Carpenter bees and…
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- A blueberry colored Damselfly with jewel green eyes!!
Assorted vining summer flowers,
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- Raindrops on wild grapes
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- two inch orange tubes of Trumpet creeper (aka: Campsis radicans)
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- that open to herald in the nectar lovers
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- Bignona: gone
*It may be a Crossvine (aka: Cross-Vine, Trumpet Flower (Bignonia capreolata)) LOOK HERE
mushrooms,
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- A chewed red mushroom,
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- another golden variety, also chewed,
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- and a trail of whites growing under the oaks in the leaves and moss
and too much heat.
While I mowed the day away, Bob kept busy with string trimming, and push mowering the areas I can’t get into with the riding mower. When he was done, he took a rest, ate lunch, and then continued work on our new compost station!
NOTE TO SELF: build a wire cover for the beginning bin if we intend to continue to using if for kitchen scraps! The skunks paid it a visit after the last dump. Or, maybe we should start a wormery?
~*~*~*~
Our collective health has taken a blow, and consequently so has our bank account. Not to whine, well OK, I am going to whine: $800.00 for Bob to take an ambulance ride? And of course our new insurance did not cover it! RIDICULOUS! (I want to tell you more about this, but not now.)
All this has us just keeping up with weed abatement and clearing the trail into the woods. Mowing, and by that I mean just around the house, pond and outbuildings, and the paths through to the tall grass to the trail, etc. takes me *6 to 7 hours.
It is hard work and the pastures would be better tended by a flock of goats and my geese, but we are in a holding pattern while we catch up from medical bills.
Fall and Winter will find us back at work on the inside of the little farmhouse. In the meantime we continue to peel away the layers of wallpaper and paneling to prepare for new joists, plumbing , electrical, closing up the walls, and painting.
All things in good time, eh?
*RE: Hours of lawn mowing – Follow this link to a humorous but serious treatise shared on Ruth’s Chickens which contemplates the state of lawns and nature: HERE!
Life on the Farmlet 