How Does Your Garden Grow?

May 202011
 

It’s a sunny 77 degrees in my neck of the woods today, and I have the day off of work to plant my gardens.

I don’t normally plant flowers in my vegetable gardens, but I just love the “faces” on Pansies.  Makes me think of the singing flowers in Alice in Wonderland.

Yep, I’m a dork.

But I’m OK with that.

Putting some of these amongst the veggies, I’m hoping for some great pollinating action amongst all the other plants.

I’m too cheap to by the drop dead gorgeous pre-made hanging baskets offered at the nursery, so I buy the 4-packs of flowers and make my own.

Violas always seem to do well, and the hummingbirds seem to like them.

The new flower for me this year is Torenia.  They’re supposed to cascade nicely around the planter.

Plus they have that neat “trumpet” flower that I’m hoping the hummingbirds will like too.

OK, you’re probably saying to yourself “Sandy, if you want the hummingbirds to come around, why not just put out feeders?”  Simple:  I could do without the ants thankyouverymuch.  We have very sand soil up here, and I don’t want to deal with them getting in my house more than they already do.

I do have to admit I considered buying one for the rock garden, which is far enough away from the house not to worry about ants, but I just couldn’t justify the price of the silly thing.

Again, I’m cheap.

Veggies are fairly simple for me.  Since I do square-foot-gardening, and I also can salsa and pickles, I only planted peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers this year.  With my herb garden, this is plenty for me to handle.

So now I will sit and wait.

And pray for ideal conditions to get these babies growing and producing lots of bounty.

And hope that the area dogs stay out of the gardens.

And spend hours keeping the weeds under control.

But come fall, it’s all worth it.

The Old Girl is Back Home

May 132011
 

A couple weeks ago you may remember that we had a little problem with the lawn tractor.

After looking at all the options that we had (buy another new one with tons of bells and whistles; convert to electric; sacrifice a virgin to rid the machine of the evil that resided within) Rick took the path of least resistance and contacted a local repair shop that took a look at it.

Usually, local is going to cost you up the wazoo, being from a not-so-large town without tons of options to choose from.  But this place was only about 10 miles from the house, so Rick hauled it up there and let the guy give us his diagnosis and estimate, and we went with it.

A week later, and the old girl is back home.

I realize that this particular piece of equipment is 10 years old, and things start breaking down.  But a fire isn’t really breaking down now, is it.  That is something entirely different.

I think the diagnose of what caused the fire was fairly clear:  “Remove shroud and clean mouse nest out.”

Oops.  Um, yeah, that would probably do it.  As a matter of fact, those little buggers have caused us trouble before by building a nest on top of my car engine and chewing up the wires.  Not fun trying to drive your car when the engine keeps cutting out.

I was a tad embarrassed by that find, but the mechanic seemed amused.

Whatever.

So wires were replaced, along with a fuse, ignition coil, and spark plug all to the tune of a lot less money than it would have taken if any of the other ideas were chosen.  Well, I’m not sure about the sacrificing the virgin part, but that probably would have ended up in a little scandal, so it was discarded rather quickly.

Rick also had the guy give her a little TLC by replacing the mower deck drive belt, blades, change the engine oil & filter,  and lubricate the front steering.  Good all around maintenance.

Might as well get it all done while it’s there, right?

Heck, the guy even went so far as to check the valves (which, he notes, were very close to specifications).

M’kay, glad to know that.

The patient was given a clean bill of health and is now back home and resting comfortably in the garage.

Weather permitting, she will be given her first test drive this weekend and put to work with finishing what was started before the fire.

Yep, lots of stuff to haul and yard debris to clean up yet.

And with the rain we’ve been getting the last couple days, the lawn might even need to be mowed.

Fun in the Sun

May 072011
 

Well, maybe you wouldn’t call it fun.

But it did make me feel good.

And it was productive.

And it was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day!

I guess if I were to say it correctly, it would be considered work.  But in a feel good, productive way.  On a sunny day.

What is a better way to spend such a day after being cooped up in the house for 6 long months of Winter?  Tackle some outdoor yard work and spruce up the area around the garden.

See all that brush there?  It’s outta here!

Pulling, cutting and waging my battle against these nasty little *%@#’s was no easy chore.  The root systems on them are from one plant to another, an almost mutant cross between a tree and a weed.  I finally had to stop after 5 hours because my hands hurt so bad.

When I stood back and looked at my progress, there was a noticeable difference.  And a lot of crap got hauled off and dumped elsewhere.

I even hung up my gardening wind chime to pretty up the area.

I’m not anywhere near done, but I’m happy with what I accomplished today, and I can give myself a pat on the back for a job well done.

And while I’m doing that, I might as well check for woodticks.

Not the Kind of Fire for S’mores

Apr 262011
 

Easter Sunday was spent doing some yard work while waiting for Chris and Erik to arrive.  They had other family doins about an hour away, so we had time to get outside on such a gorgeous day and putz.

Rick took the lawn tractor out and hooked up the leaf sweeper to it to get the rest of the fall leaves and twigs off the yard while I built up my raised garden beds.

I finished my work and came in the house to fold some laundry and Rick followed shortly thereafter with the welcoming phrase “Did you see the lawnmower on fire?”

Ummm… what!?!

Now, I had heard the outside spigot being turned on but didn’t really give it a second thought until I was met with these words.

Apparently it had been making some sputtering noises as he was going around the yard, and he was just heading to the edge of the property to drop off the final load of debris and the thing just shut down.

He noticed some smoke coming out from underneath the hood, lifted it up, and sure enough, there were flames.

So he ran to the back of the house, filled a bucket with water, and in those few seconds returned to find the whole front of the machine in flames.

Lovely.

We’re not sure what exactly started it, but you can be darn certain that this spark plug wire took a direct hit (or was possibly even the culprit).

We bought this machine 9 years ago, and it has been a real trooper considering what we have put it through.

Now we need to figure out what our next move is:  Replacement or repair.  Or Rick’s other option:  Convert it to electric.  (He was already researching this last possibility within 30 minutes of the fire.)

No matter which option is chosen, the fact is clear that we need a machine of this type around the homestead.  Not just for mowing the lawn, but for hauling heavy loads in the small trailer.

Or taking grandchildren for rides around the neighborhood when they come up to visit.

Shopping Challenge Results 4/18/11

Apr 202011
 

So, how did I do?

I think I did pretty darn good!

When you are really, really conscious of sticking to what your plan is, it really makes a difference in the shopping experience. (Heck, this can be said for a lot of things in life, eh?)

Lets take a look at my list first.

Not a huge list for it being 2 weeks since I went shopping.

There are a few things on there that don’t get bought very often, but they are part of an overall shopping experience, so I will not make an exceptions for them.

The question mark by the onions?  Well, we really didn’t need them but if they were decent looking and a good price, they were to be considered, so I threw it on the list.

The one thing I couldn’t find was the Sucanat.  Totally bummed me out!  Love it more than brown sugar.

Now, lets look at my receipts.

Sorry the print turned out so small.  If you want to get a good look at what I bought for the “condemn or approve” round, you’ll just have to click on the picture to enlarge it.

This is full disclosure, baby!

OK, now you are going to see that there were a few things that I bought that weren’t on my list.  Here’s what they are and why I bought them:

  • Ham Salad – Forgot to add something for my lunches for work.
  • Sweetened Condensed Milk – Forgot to put on list for Lemon Bar recipe I want to try.
  • Banquet Fish Dinner – Again, lunch for work.
  • Townhouse Crackers – We were low on these, plus they would go great with the Ham Salad if the kids wanted some for snacks when they came up this weekend.

That’s it, only 4 items that weren’t on the list.  Dang, that’s pretty good for me (and of course, I’d forgotten to eat before I left, but I didn’t let that get in my way… yay stomach!!).

Even though the rules say that an item is OK to buy if I knew that I was getting low on it, I am not going to justify any of these items.  I know I could, but then I wouldn’t be learning from this little experiment, now would I?

So how am I going to rate my first week?  Well, kinda hard to do without some sort of scale to go by (yeah, kinda forgot about that part).  So let’s remedy that right now, shall we?

1 = Pathetic

2 = You Could Do Better

3 = Getting Warmer

4 = Oh, So Close!

5 = Shopping Goddess

Now that that’s established, I give myself a 4.

I was very close and restrained myself from putting things in my cart that I probably would have because we would have used them, but we didn’t NEED them.

And on a personal note, $90.55 qualifies as Happy Dance material right there!

OK, it’s your turn now.  How did I do?  Be honest, because that is what I’m looking for here.

If you’d like to try the challenge yourself, let me know and I’ll link up your page so others can see how you do too!

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