Sunday, May 27, 2007

Lazy Bees in my Borage

A fun part of cold spring days is the lazy bees.
They just hang out on the blossoms, sampling a bit of the wonderful nectar that flows slowly on these cooler mornings. It isn't quite as sweet, it isn't quite as sticky, but on these mornings the busy bees flutter around, quietly and slowly doing their work. There is no frantic race to get to the next blossom...
and it makes for a great time just to sit and watch them.

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Friday, May 25, 2007

The Final Frontier

This little piggy boldly went where no one has gone before...
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Monday, May 21, 2007

The promise of bounty and beautiful flowers

The promise of bounty is full through out the yard. There are tons of green berries everywhere. These are just a few of the sweet strawberry patches that are starting to grow and get seeds. Soon they will start coloring, and then sweet harvest.

These Iris' are from my dads yard. They are pretty much the most stunning iris I have ever seen. The odd color gives way to this beautiful purple on the edges of the petals. They get darker as they get sunshine. Stunning!

And yet, another fairy area of my yard. These flowers are about 1 inch tall, but they cover the ground under the Truffula Tree in the back like a blanket of tiny cotton candy. It seems like the perfect place for fairies to play.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Rhone's Quilt

Please excuse my crazy dirty carpet.

I finished this right before Don's graduation. I was able to give it to my friend Gabe after the ceremony. They are about to have another babe, so I will be making another one sometime soon. :)

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Sticks & Stones (And blooming peonies)

Take a walk through my yard with me.
Here is the produce garden with the new slate pathway (under construction). The teepee is for the tricolored beans I have in there (green, purple, and yellow wax) that are just about to pop through. I am all about colors this year... I have three colors of tomatoes, 4 colors of beans, and three varieties of sage... along with two colors of cucumbers, sunflowers, fennel, and chives. If variety is the spice of life, I am a hot pepper in the garden. ;) The rocks just make me happy... look how clean and nice the strawberry bed looks with the rocks next to it, and these are there from last year too. All I need to do is weed whack them every couple weeks. Easy...
New rocks put in place of ones that were too small in the herb garden. My 5 kinds of mint, lemon balm and oregano (both in the mint family) along with terragon, purple and green sage, and winter savory are in this corner... they are filling in so nicely! It looks wonderful. And will make great tea later this summer. :)
Here is the newest rocked garden. A lot of these came from a friends yard. It looks SO much nicer now that the rocks are there. I can't wait for the plants to fill in. I am getting some more peonies from my dads house this weekend to fill in this area... his are HUGE and pink with white centers. They also have a pretty maroon foliage... that will be a nice addition to that side of the yard.
Sweet peony face.

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Big Rocks

As crazy as it sounds, I just love big rocks. I like them so much that I have started to border my gardens with them... You can see them in this post I did a year ago when I added them to my produce garden border. Now I am adding a cut stone pathway as well. I am currently pulling rocks from everywhere to put around the rest of my gardens as well. I even bought a few (silly huh? But they are super cheap). My friend is getting rocks from her gardening adventure and I came home with the back of my van loaded with the large round, beautiful things and added them to the side of my cucumber/squash bed. It looks great! I have a few more to do (am picking up more today) but when I am done I will take pictures. (of course. lol) It all looks "under construction" today, but I am excited about the posibility budding there.

I am also a fan of big sticks...
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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Extreme Simplicity


Great book... a million and one great ideas. Two things, however, were very clear... #1. These two live in South Cali... where it is hot and dry and you need to conserve water above all else. and #2. They don't have children.

Overall, I would give it a good rate of about 8 out of 10. Very effective, and they have some wonderful ideas that can really help. I loved their bit on pets, food, and gardening. The different ways they studied gardening (they basically have identified everything in their large SoCal yard and taken out things you cant eat (except the Castor Trees, which they said they just couldn't move from the spot... they were too rooted there, and it felt like an invasion) and added things that they can eat. Even a type of apple they found that grows in SoCal, but mostly citrus. And then they let the wild take over. They use compaion planting for their yearly annual veggie beds too... two ideas that I have been employing for a while and just love the way it makes my yard maintainence really easy. They talk about eating wild, pickling (the easiest and longest lasting canning way), and ways to cook with no power. They also talked about having chickens, pigs, ducks, and a bunch of other animals in a city setting. Along with water conservation, recycling, dumster diving, energy conservation, how to live with no power, solar pannels, and much much more. I loved reading it... but some of their suggestions made it very clear they had never lived with children (bring your dity clothes into the bathtub with you anyone? lol...)
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Meet the Ladies

Here are our new additions to our fast growing family.
Our sweet baby hens!
We call them our 'flowers' because the kids and I have named them (clockwise from left) Clover, Sage, Rose,
Lilly, Violet, and Iris.

We got two of each kind, Araconas (the striped ones), Golden Sex Links (the blonde ones), and Rhode Island Reds. By the end of the summer they should be laying and running around the yard. For now, they sleep, eat, poop, and peep. And the kids are just in love.

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Tuesday, May 8, 2007

I think he likes it...

:) Babies really know how to make a mama happy sometimes.
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Sunday, May 6, 2007

Logan's newest homemade teething toy


I have missed sewing while my machine was in the shop. I made this today with all the love I could muster for my sewing friends. A lot of love and giving went into this doll. Made on a gifted sewing machine (named "Baby"), with a premade gifted doll head peice, and gifted organic taupe stripe fabric... even the untreated wooden teething ring was given to us with love from my friends. There was a lot of love in my house today as I worked on this project before our dinner.

I am so grateful.

Katie... when you have your baby, one of these is being passed down to you. :)
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Thursday, May 3, 2007

Strawberry flowers and look at me grow!

These beauties will turn into wonderful strawberries in about two months time. I can't wait. Last year the plants were stunted becuase I had to transplant them late. I was terribly sad about the fact that we only got a handful of berries after the plants produced baskets and baskets full. This year looks good so far.

Every week this garden gets more full and taller and I am just loving it. I added the prayer flags from under the patio due to us getting a new grill and fire hazzard. Then I added the bird house Alex made me. I LOVE it out there.


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