Category Archives: Garden & Yard

Random Friday Five- (updated) snow, seedlings, girlscout cookies, yarn, abreva

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IMG_93821) What a difference a day makes. The above photo was yesterday. The lower photo is today.
This area is where my garden is. I look forward to when it will be filled with growing veggies.IMG_9417
edited in 2-28-2015
My husband was looking at my blog this morning and pointed out that the top snow picture isn’t exactly the same angle as the no-snow one. So I went through my photos from the 26th and was happy to find one that’s real close to the same area as the no-snow one.
So, here it is, the same areas one day apart.
It still fascinates how fast winter snow storms come and go.IMG_9367

IMG_94192) My basil has sprouted and is growing into happy little seedlings.

IMG_90373) With the help of our Grandson, we’ve polished off 5 boxes of girlscout cookies. We certainly enjoyed them.
I buy girlscout cookies from my great-niece who lives in a small town far away from me. I send extra money to have the cookies shipped to me. I love helping her whenever I can.
My problem runs into the Girlscouts of the area I live in. It’s tough to see the little girls in the cold and/or windy weather selling cookies outside some of the local businesses. They’re so pitiful shivering and calling out to passers-by to sell cookies. I respond to their beckonings by explaining to them that I’ve already bought cookies from my niece in another town.
*Here’s what I think might make it better for the girlscouts: I wish the girlscouts would offer a badge that I could buy with their troup number on it and the year I bought cookies from them. When the other troups see it, they’ll know I support Girlscouts and I’ve done bought cookies. Then they don’t have to leave a warm spot to call out for me to buy cookies. The Girlscouts could even switch colors or something on the badges every year so it’s recognizable by sight. Do you think badges would be a good idea?

IMG_92114) I went shopping for some green yarn to make another blanket (for a surprise-gift for a special someone) My husband saw some soft pearl yarn and thought it would make a pretty blanket too. So, now I have oodles of yarn to make 2 more nice soft blankets. I hope I can get them made before next winter.

0221151133-15) During the icy bout of cold weather we had, I had a fever blister break out on my top lip. I treated it with carmex for cold sores (camphor). It tastes awful and so when I saw a commercial for abreva, the fast acting treatment, as soon as we could get out the driveway to go to the store, I bought some. Wow, that stuff worked like a charm for me. I was almost totally healed up with in 2 days. It may not work for everyone and it’s quite pricey for the tiny tube, but to me, it was worth every dime.

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend of sunshine.clnflwrsds

spflwrsln

My Gardenitis is acting up

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2-21-2015It’s still cold, but thankfully we’ve thawed out and had a couple rains. The ground is totally saturated. It’s still freezing and below temps though.  The past week of freezing cold damp weather made my gardenitis start acting up. There’s only one real cure and since I can’t cure it by actually working in the garden, I did the next best thing, I started some seed trays. I’ve chosen to use the large peat pellets this year.  Later on, I’ll start a few veggie seeds. I enjoyed working in the bit of soil and planting, but it’s not enough. Thankfully, I have some craft projects in the works to entertain me.

IMG_9222We want to have some colorful low maintenance perennials around our yard. We have fairly good luck with tuber/bulbs. So, we hit a sale and bought several day-lilies. We can hardly wait to plant them.

We’re anxiously waiting last frost so we can treat our gardenitis good-n-proper.
This is all the gardening news for now.

Here’s wishing you all a pleasant rest of the winter.
gardeningcouple
spflwrsln

Fixing-to-get-ready for the 2015 Gardening season

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Harvest 6-22-2014

Harvest 6-22-2014

We originally hadn’t planned to have a garden this year. We had decided to take a year or more off from gardening. We were both looking forward to not worrying with the work and responsibilities of gardening…

Then during one long dark boring winter evening we realized that Summer daylight hours are really long too. Other than yard maintenance and sitting on the back porch watching Shelibean chase bugs, we were headed for a very boring inactive Summer. We figure we need exercise and since we’re not much for athletics or any of the extreme walking nonsense, we decided to have a garden once again.

We plan on our garden being small, but that could change… and it always does…
We’re making plans and looking forward to tilling the soil, planting, weeding, harvesting and eating the produce of our labor… Yeah!
IMG_8937Last week I ordered a new supply of One Ball squash seeds. They arrived last Monday.
At our house, round squash has became a tradition. Now, I’m ready for garden season and purchasing the other seeds and plants we’ll try to grow.

One Ball Squash

One Ball Squash

So folks, get ready for another year of repetitive anecdotes and unprofessional garden photos straight from my home-place posted here on my blog. Lucky you. 😉gardening

I hope you all are looking ahead and making
plans to spend time outdoors this Spring.
gardeningcouple
spflwrsln

Seeds Saved and ready for 2015

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IMG_7102I’ve got a few flowers seeds saved for next year. You may notice the white powder in the bags in the photo. The white powder is DE (Diatomaceous Earth Food Grade). I always put DE in with my saved flowers seeds in case some lil’ buggers hatches out during the winter. DE is helpful in killing bugs, insects, spiders, ants and stuff. We discovered it back a few years ago during a brown recluse scare. DE gets into the exoskeleton and causes the pests to dry out. I’ve used DE on a centipede and it killed it, so that impressed me greatly. I feel better thinking that I may help prevent some little pests or no-see’ums from surviving in my flower seeds.

I don’t have to put DE with my squash seeds since the seeds are clean, dried and will be put in labeled envelopes. I saved a lot more seeds than I actually plan on using (because I can’t make myself throw them away.) I told my husband that I plan on planting only 4 squash plants next year.  He laughed at me and says, “Oh yeah, that’ll happen.”
I always go overboard with starting my squash seeds and then I don’t have the heart not to plant all the seedlings. But the problem is that I never know how productive my plants will be. I don’t plant 3 seeds or seedlings in a hill, I plant the individual seedlings about 4 feet apart. This year I started 9 round squash seeds, but 6 plants were all that survived. Those 6 plants covered us in round squash. Other years I’ve planted as many as 18 plants and we only got a moderate harvest. We’ll just wait and see how it goes.

Do you save seeds each year?
Do you have any special things you do with or to the seeds when storing them?

Have a terrific Tuesday.
🙂

spgrnbgln

Random Five Friday – 9-5-2014

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IMG_6765Sheli enjoyed some time sitting in my lap under a shade tree. We’ve been trying to take advantage of the nice weather in between storms.

IMG_6644Last weekend, My husband built a small fire for me and our Grandson to grill some marshmallows to make some smores. Our Grandson was surprised I’d never made nor eaten a smore before. It was a lot of fun for me to have my Grandson show me how to make one. Here’s a photo of my first and only smore. 🙂smore1

We were at our local department store and I was delighted to see that they have Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses stocked on the shelves already. Peanut Butter kisses doesn’t last long on the shelves and they’ll be out-of-stock within no time.  I scurried over and got me a couple bags. Apparently there’s a lot of us that share a sweet-tooth for these chewy sweet goodies. I wonder if that’s just a southern-thang or if they’re as popular in the other parts of the states and the world?
Do you have a seasonal candy or food that you look forward too buying or making over a holiday? IMG_6922

I chopped open some of my round squash to save the seeds. I didn’t keep the squash part, we’re burned out on squash for the year. I had my husband take them to the woods for the deer to eat.IMG_6824

While I was sitting under a shade tree trying to surf the net I finally got my blog page to load and then I noticed my reflection in my KindleFire, so I took a sort of a reflection-selfy with my digital camera. lol IMG_6801Notice the band-aid at the top of my KindleFire. It’s there blocking the camera lens. I do the same thing on my laptop too. I don’t like having cameras pointed at me all the time. I’ve never even activated the camera on my KF. I don’t see any reason too. If it had a camera lens on the back side like a cellphone, I’d probably activate it and use it though.
I wish I was more skilled at using the keyboard on the kindlefire, then I could do some serious blogging.  Honestly, I don’t have the patience to sit and correct-the-auto-correct. For some reason it constantly changes what I type. Oh well, gotta love modern technology.

So, how about you, other than texting, are you skilled at using the typing part of tablets or cellphones to make blog posts or comments?

I hope these last days of Summer are going well for you all.
Have a nice weekend.
🙂
spgrnbgln