• Around home - Blog - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: landscaping edition

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    Last week we had a beautifully cool, breezy, low humidity day. Outside projects were definitely on the docket. The biggest of these was replacing landscaping. This has needed to be done for quite some time.

    Here’s a photo from 2 years ago…T Tuesday: harvest edition| Halle's Hobbies

    The log border was already starting to get a little wonky. Fast forward two years and it was rotting away.

    Now it looks like this! Mini-me and I did this one ourselves. The edging is recycled rubber. Nice and flexible to bend  and form to what your little heart desires. We had a couple of surface tree roots to contend with so we just made sure to line things up so that I wouldn’t have to pound a stake through the root. 

    I did end up going through what I can only assume was root a couple inches underground on the back side of this flower bed.

    We were so happy with how nice this one looked and how easy it was to install that I went back for more material to fix up another eyesore area in need of upgrade.

    I’m not sure if you can tell but along the right side of the photo is some black edging that was basically laying down…definitely not how we installed it so many years ago. Frost heave has done a number on it.

    Now it looks like this….

    Complete with a couple new perennials.

    I love how this looks so much!

    Since at least half of the black edging pieces were still salvageable, I put them around my water barrels.

    That is kind of our haphazard area. Mismatched pieces of this and that have all found their way over here. It all works though. Now if we’d only get some rain to refill my barrels.

    So after a hard days work a little refreshment is always in order.

    Just a couple more days of taxi driving for volleyball this week…then two weeks off before it starts up again…everyday. Mini-me and I are also getting ready for a little trip north. The boys are too busy working to come with us. I’ll be sure to share that adventure in a couple weeks.

    What are you doing today?

    T stands for Tuesday

    Oh and just for you Chris…

  • Around home - Art - Blog - Creativity - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: gardens and more edition

    July 10, 2017 - By 

    This week I thought I’d give you a look at how my gardens are doing followed up with some art.

    FYI-photo heavy post

    The deck box garden holds my yellow pear tomato plants each year to keep them from cross pollinating with the red regular sized varieties, This year I think I got a few seeds mixed up. I have some non-pear shaped tomatoes on a couple vines. Hmmm. Time will tell. I also have my Egyptian walking onions, radishes and jalapenos in there. Resting on the edge is a new to me shepherds hook. Mr. G is going to move one hook about 10 inches down for me when he digs out the welder.

    The shed garden is going gangbusters after what seemed like a very slow start. I have tons of tomatoes on the vines. Even the bedraggled plants that came home from Biology class with J are doing fantastic.

    The pumpkin and this tomato included. I really had no hope for either of these plants so I didn’t work very hard making a good home for them. Obviously they don’t care a bit.

    The yellow summer squash and zucchini are getting large although the zucchini hasn’t produced anything yet.

    The yellow ones are tasty though.

    The first bit of bounty from the garden has arrived.

    I am dealing with this pest though. Anyone know what it is and how to get rid of it without chemicals? I’ve been knocking them off and squishing them but the little munchers keep coming back for more.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    We changed things up a little this year and didn’t attend the local parade for the 4th of July. Instead we went to a party close to our old neighborhood. We figured out that we hadn’t been to their annual bash in 10yrs. I forgot my phone at home so no pictures from there.

    We came back for the standard evening shenanigans on our block. J had 6-7 friends hanging out by the end of the evening. You wouldn’t believe how quickly 3 large pizzas can disappear.

    We joined a neighbor in their front yard for the awesome view of the fireworks, What a fun night.

    Of course, there was lots of overindulging of all sorts so my drink of choice the next morning was….

    alka-seltzer.

    I did take a bit of time for creating. I’m not sure how I feel about this page now that its dry.  The colors of the stains were so fun and vibrant before they dried. Now the page is a little dull.

    I went back and added these paper beads I made years ago to try and dress things up a bit. I love that they’ll hang outside the book begging someone to open it up to take a peek.

    I’m planning to work on the landscape edging around a flower bed before it gets too hot. The humidity is what is so bad right now. UGH! I get very cranky in the heat.  And don’t even talk to me about my hair.

    What are you doing today?

    T stands for Tuesday
  • Around home - Blog - Crafts - Creativity - Kitchen

    Back at it…finally

    June 22, 2017 - By 

    It has been a while girls and boys. Every time I sat down to write a post, I just couldn’t. I was stuck…blocked by emotion. Not sure how to move on with my blog while still dealing with the grief of losing my mom. Somehow it felt wrong. I know that is crazy talk but it took a while to move beyond that thought. So here I am…back at it.

    I’ve been busy with a number of things…

    such as this wreath. It came together quite nicely from some clearance items. I’m thinking about hanging it under the eaves on our deck. I haven’t actually taken it out there to see if there is enough wall space but I think it would be a lovely addition to the space.

    I’ve experimented with some acrylic pours that I’ll share in another post.

    The sun is finally out today…we’ve had rain, rain, rain today. I found this cute little nest laying in the yard after a recent storm.

    Today was also the first CSA drop off date. They were supposed to start last week but there had been a terrible hail storm that had taken out a lot of the crops. I have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised at the high quality and quantity of produce I got today.

    Those carrots are so good!!!!! They taste just like I remember as a kid…only not so gritty. I used to pull them out of the ground, swish them in the rain barrel and eat them.