October Blooms

The flowers up front finally started recovering from being rabbit-mown. I planted pansies in front of them yesterday.

September Walk at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gadren

look for this kind next year!

Peachy

M & M brought us peaches from their peach picking expedition! Recipe.

It's Only 80 Degrees on an August Afternoon?

I can't get a good shot, from the patio, of the white hydrangeas.

Tomatoes!

Zinnias just reseed themselves in my garden; salvia, too. I leave most of them wherever they appear. I saved marigold seeds on purpose and got 2 or 3 plants, all in a clump.

Study in reds and oranges: early girl tomatoes, old fashioned zinnias.

Back eyed susans look good this year!

We're eating sungold tomatoes (at right) like candy, and early girls starting to to go wild. The cantaloupe plant has three fruits.

Almost Done!

Kitchen renovation nearing the end! WIP photos here.

Mostly Green Beans

We harvested maybe 2 pounds of green beans in the last two weeks; a bounty for a household of two. The cantaloupe plant has some little fruit; cucumber, too. We're a little nervous about the cuke -- it got a weed killer on it. Also, the Harls told me to thin out that sun gold cherry tomato, and I did, but it looks like it needs more attention!

Had 20 bags of mulch delivered (Southern States); that was enough to sort of do the lawn edge. If I do that again for filling-in spots, I should go ahead and get more like 50 bags.

Early June - Late Blooms

Blue hydrangeas have yet to bloom -- I know I picked them for Memorial Day in the past. The day lilies started blooming this week. Veg garden looking good, with nursery tomatoes setting lots of fruit. One tomato that M. started from seed looks great, but no blooms. Should have peas this week.

Cut out dead stems on the poets laurel - just on the east side of the flagstones; the other half can wait a week.

Kitchen

C. promised that we'd get tired of camping out in our own home -- and I didn't believe her until week 4, I think it was, when I made rice salad for friends. So much chopping! And on that low table ... then washing up in the short sink in the basement. But it's gone well, and now we wait for the counter tops to be made. In the meantime, we can put things in upper cabinets and back in the pantry. The pantry needed a good scrubbing, first, so this is just a note to help me remember that pine sol was perfectly good for cleaning the construction grit and the four years worth of grime we'd put down through use.

In other news, here's a magnolia.



Shrubs way too overgrown -- moved some perennials out from under: the blue salvia, and some astilbe.

First Meal!

Pizza going into the new oven!

Taking Credit for the Big Boquet

Peonies and iris.

Planted lots of annuals today: alyssum, impatiens, zinnias; and snapdragons for the porch pots. Fought vines; put down fabric weed block in veg garden and covered it with not quite enough mulch.

Tested out one of those organic weed killing mixes: vinegar and salt. We'll see.

Kitchen remodeling pictures, here by the way.

True or False

Did the false indigo bloom last year? Not sure. It's purpler in person. Quite terrific.

May Blooms

These took me by surprise when they started bloom several days ago -- before a days'-long stretch of rain. I didn't remember late blooming, tiny daffodils at all.

amsonia, star of Bethlehem 

snowball viburnum ... and another viburnum to its left?

still more viburnum?

I need to retitle this post "I thought I learned the name of that." Weeding a regular activity this spring: we can't afford much mulch again this year. Azaleas bloomed; sweet mock orange just started. Today I planted a few seedlings from M&M: tomatoes, herbs. a pepper, a cuke. Snow peas up about an inch. (Gah - looks like they bloomed this time last year!)

Beering-Making

Bloom and Hack

Picked some flowers, finished hacking vines out of the smoke bush, gathered up most of the debris from cutting back perennials. I could take another pass at that chore, another day. I'd also like to move the yucca out from next to the front camellia, as it is too big to be there.

Viburnum seemed to get closer to blooming as I worked, and I swear leaves popped out for sure during the 3 hour session.

Bulbs Started Blooming; and it Snowed

On Sunday, I put some of our compost on the veggie garden, cut back annuals, pulled vines out of the smoke bush. I also cut a few things so they could bloom indoors while it snowed Sunday night and Monday.

24 Hours Apart

March 2

This morning I spent 30 minutes a couple of chores. I noted bulbs up an inch or more. I cut the monkey grass because it all looked cold-nipped and terrible.

I also raked and swept near the patio a little because we had a few people over this afternoon to taste the beer Michael and Phil made. It was 70 ish so we sat outside. Around 3 it got a cloudy and a little windy -- and then it started to rain. We're going into one of those stretches when Monday's high temp will be at midnight and it will get colder and snowier until it's nine degrees or so. They predict.

A Little Snow

Holiday 2013!

Christmas Eve with our friends for Chinese dinner has become quite the tradition.  We have changed up the location this time, now the restaurant is closer with less crowds and....a buffet.

The past few years we have exchanged gifts, nothing major, sometimes goofy, sometimes sweets.  The Goldens won the craziest, with some snuggle-esque monstrosity call "Forever Lazy".  Lisa likes to call it "I Give Up".  Hilarious and look for a group photo soon.

Our more traditional photo we have been trying to do is the Lisa and Phil by the tree.

This leads to Christmas Day and one of Phil's favorite gifts, the Puking Cat Gravy boat, a funny and practical art piece by GingerELA.

In action:

Ended the evening with relaxing on the couch watching "White Christmas".