August

A good scratch.

Yes, the mosquitoes are still here. They like Rusty.

Late summer flowers

The new bed is done.

Had some time on my hands...

Rusty's checking out mom's old knot garden, which I planted with moss and herbs. Boy did that bring back memories. Mom, searching for the perfect little plants that were just the right scale...hunting down the best moss, collecting it wherever she went. Remember the little round ones she got from the wall at Whittington Court, T?

I have a lot of "steppables" and plenty of moss to play with. Mom would love all the mosses we have! She'd also love that little silvery thing, (Scabwort), in the center, it has tiny leaves and looks like it could be santolina or sage. I'm not worried about scale, I really like the texture of that hairy moss in the hearts, though it's far too coarse for mom's standards. It's fun to play with, if the transplants don't take, I won't mind starting over.
Next I need to clean out the Oxford garden and replant it with moss. I wonder how the rest of the little gardens are doing?

Veg News

The tomatoes will make it, fingers crossed!
Beans and zucchini are coming out of our ears, yay! Where's that little vegetarian now? She needs to hurry and get home to help us eat all this good green stuff. I harvested the first kohlrabi, it was nice and crisp, despite the hot weather.
The raspberries are growing tall, and have started to flower!
This is an exciting year, gardenwise; everything has fallen into place and works well, finally! The leaves we put on in the fall made a difference, but it also just comes down to time, in two respects. First, we've been here long enough to make it work and figure it out. And second, this summer, unlike other years where I leave for a few weeks, I've spent most of my time devoted to the garden: watering, weeding, fertilizing and covering the greenhouse every night. At this very moment I feel a pull to go out there and check on things. See ya later!

It's 86 degrees, 35% humidity, sunny with a breeze at 1:00 pm.

The 90s

Hot weather has arrived. Yesterday, July 22, was the first day I was outside without the constant buzz of mosquitoes. It is now possible to sit down outside in one place for more than 30 seconds! I was finally able to enjoy some time in the lawn chair, my favorite place. Happy day! This morning I sat on the porch and read a bit of the paper. The contents of the paper were disheartening, but sitting outside without getting bitten was lovely.

The Rudbeckia is blooming, along with the Monarda, Nasturtiums, roses, and lavender. All the wild color brings bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, and plenty of grasshoppers. Rusty and Snoodly are scaring all the birds away. They were trapped in the garage yesterday morning and a little flock of grouse came by, searching for seeds in the grass.

The harvest in the greenhouse includes beans and zucchini now. Carrots and onions are ready in the box, lettuce is done. Out in the fenced garden, arugula and lettuce are ready, and a few strawberries are on the new transplants. Everything is doing well out there now that the weather has warmed.

Slammy is on a trip and I miss her.
It's 80 degrees, with a light thunderstorm passing over at 12 pm.

So pritty

Hi y'all, Snoodly here, long time no see! I've grown, and I just keep gettin' better looking, don't you think? I've got the natural eye liner, cute little rose nose pad, and gorgeous green eyes. The markings on my forehead mean something in cat language, but I can't tell you what they say, 'cause then I'd have to kill you. Well, I'll see ya later, I gotta go catch some crickets.

Boom!
July is here! The weather is great, the mosquitoes are terrible, and the garden is bloomin'! We watched the fireworks at J's coaster, and Jr. took these Outstanding photos.

Most of the flowers are bigger and better this year, the garden has finally filled in and looks so much prettier! It's a mix of wild stuff and things planted from seed, bulb or small plants. It takes a few years for the tiny plants to get established, but all the waiting has finally paid off. The mosquitoes make me want to abandon all of this though, they are driving me crazy!

It will help to mow all the tall grass, if we could get a lawnmower.

Ox-eye daisies

Snapdragons. These are doing so well this year, the plants are much bigger and somehow survived the winter.

Yarrow and bachelor buttons

Coreopsis

Gaillardia. I love this flower! It was grown from seed last year, and this year it's big and beautiful.The wild version, blanket flower.

This is my new project, another flower bed. It's so much fun working in the dirt, I have been in no hurry to finish getting all the grass and rocks out in preparation. Honey has been niggling me, trying to hurry me up, but why? Is it that pile of topsoil waiting on the lawn that the cats are using as a cat box, or could it be that he can't stand to see a project go on and on unfinished, with no seeming progress taking place? I don't know. All I do know is that I love working out in the sun, playing with rocks and dirt.

The cats love it too, when Snoodly hears the rake he comes running over to play. Here's Rusty, taking a little nap in a cool spot.J and Jr. collected some nice big rocks and I got them in place today. Next job is putting on the topsoil, then planting, then I may put on a rock mulch.

We took the plastic off the greenhouse and replaced it with row cover fabric. It breathes better.

The beans are doing great, looks like they're nearly ready to harvest. We've been eating peas, lettuce and lots of herbs. The zucchini are almost ready, but the maters are very slow. Hurry up maters!

It's 77 in the greenhouse, clouds and sun at 6 pm.

Summertime

Middle of June! How can it be?

I haven't even taken any pictures lately. We went to the car show and and Jr. got that nice shot of the Corvette and Mustang.

The weather has been alternating between very warm, and nice and cool with thunderstorms. We actually got a couple of brief downpours. Puddle making rain, it's a blessing here. Very pretty outside, green and lush, flowers blooming, but the mosquitoes are driving me nuts.

Garden update:

We had frost this month. The beans I planted out in the fenced garden got burned, even though they were covered with the blanket. Everything in the greenhouse is fine.

Potatoes are coming up out there, I thought I had dug them all up last year, but nope. I transplanted strawberries from Aunt J's garden and planted lettuce and flowers out there which are coming up slowly.

I've been harvesting radishes, bok choy, and lettuce from the box, and had the first greenhouse peas on Saturday.

Peas, zucchini, bush beans, onions, tomatoes, kohlrabi, carrots, radishes, spinach and a few flowers are in the greenhouse now. I put a tarp over part of it for shade on hot days, and that keeps the temperature down.

Animal news:

We have more birds this year, I'm sure, because there is a lot of lovely music outside, night and day. Well, it seems like night when they're singing, but the sun rises at four thirty so to them it might be morning at three.

Research on goats has made me think twice. Apparently they don't like grass and clover much, but they love trees, roses, tender tips of shrubs and pretty much everything I want to protect. They do eat some weeds, but not enough to make up for the damage they do to other stuff. Then, they turn out to be great escape artists and can undo latches and jump over fences and push through them and---what a headache!

I'd actually rather have a donkey, because they'll eat grass, and they're way cuter. But he'll need a friend, so maybe a little pygmy goat would be ok. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? The goat will be the instigator and mastermind, and the donkey will carry out his evil plans. Good luck catching them once they break out.

Rusty is behaving very badly, I don't know if he's jealous or has indigestion or if he's just a brat cat. J took down the swing support so he can't climb on the roof anymore and wake everyone up three times a night. Snoodly is behaving angelically, he's turning out to be a great cat. He's happy living out in his garage, never grumbles or demands more attention. When I pick him up he's a little rag doll, relaxing into my arms with total trust and purring up a storm. No wonder Rusty is jealous!

The fish are multiplying like mad, pretty soon the tank will be a sea of orange, as the huge school of Platy swim by, and Sharky and the bottom feeders will just be flashes of silver and brown.

It's 61 degrees, sunny at 8:30 am.

The Goat House

Many thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, and to J, for turning the old coop de chicken into this beautiful new goat house. Everything used was recycled from the old coop and from other materials lying around the place. Staggering ingenuity went into building it, and the whole project only took about an hour! The eyesore full of junk has become a sweet little shed, where the goats will look out at us and say "feeeeeeeeeed meeeeeeee!" We'll probably put up a fence for an outside yard too, with a wee mountain for them to climb on.

Now, what kind of goats? Pygmies? Milkers? Cashmere? Time for some research...

The weather has been warm and sunny and summery this week. The mosquitos are biting, the crickets are chirping and the butterflies are flying around. I've seen two garter snakes in the garden. A couple of deer have been visiting at night, eating clover and birdseed. One nest box is occupied by western bluebirds, down by the garden.

The chives are blooming, and the blue flax, which only opens in the morning.

It's about 70 degrees, sunny and breezy at 10:30 am.

Knock knock!

Anybody home?  

I had a visitor on Friday.  We've been having a little heat wave, and I guess I'm not the only one who isn't ready for it.  She was panting and very thirsty and tired.  But also curious.

She checked out the pool.
The garage.

She found the water.

And drank it all.
Then she had a little rest in the shade.

Her feet were dainty.

Her tail too.

She headed off into the forest,  and I told her she was welcome to come back...as long as she didn't eat my plants.
She gave me a sly grin, and said, but of course.

Koo Koo Ka Choo

May flower

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

Yesterday I built a little fence to block the view of the electrical box.  (Looking at this box from the kitchen window has been such a thorn in my side, there are so many things to consider when building a house!  I didn't even realize our view was being spoiled until it was too late).

Now, you may laugh at the crudity of this effort.  I'm not in the habit of building stuff.  This is a big step for me.  It's held together with twine.  Very low tech.  But J will make it sturdier with his power tool expertise.  Then I will try and grow something on it, that the deer don't like of course. This is on their smorgasbord route, and I'm sure they'd love it if I planted beans or sunflowers here.  They'd eat everything then knock down the fence to spite me.  What's that poisonous climbing bean called?  Castor?  I need some of those seeds.

I'm still trying to figure out where to plant some sunflowers.  Without a fence they'll get chomped for sure.  Maybe I should prepare a little field of them with an electric fence around it.  I've got electricity right there at the box...Heh heh, heh heh, zap!

It's warm today!  I prepared the fenced garden for planting raspberries and ?.  The race is on for growing as much as we can as quickly as possible before the end of the season come September. Or we could just lounge around in lawn chairs and go shop at the Farmer's Market...