Spring Cleaning

Each Spring we have to clean out our Koi pond. It's a horrible job but one that is necessary. As you walk by and the pond smells "swampy"-it's usually a pretty good sign that it's time.

Larry starts by skimming the top of debris and leaves and the pampas grass clippings.

But eventually he has to scoop down to the bottom and get all the muck out.

Tae helped cut all the grasses down and then raked out the beds.

Eventually, Larry has to get into the pond.

The Koi are not amused and like to brush by his legs.

Every once in a while you hear a little yell because he thinks it's a Garden Snake.

Today he worked on rebuilding the waterfall.

The winter snow had displaced a lot of rocks and the Racoons like to come and move the rocks looking for bugs and scrumptious things to eat.

The water lillies were completely overgrown. We cut the overgrown roots off the bottom and repotted them. I hate this job. The lillies are full of muck and stink. Then we stink.

The kids moved my glider swing out under the Willow Tree.

The big pampas grasses were cut back. They really need to be divided but we can do that anytime during the summer. They are so hardy they don't mind being hacked apart.

Buddha is quite happy to have some sun.

He entertained the chickens today.

We redid the boulders at the opposite end of the pond and create another small waterfall.

The water will be murky for about another week but will clear up soon. We started feeding the fish today but only in small amounts. The water is still quite cold and their metabolism is still slow so we do a bit at a time.

My yard is just blossoming with spring time.

Isn't it pretty?

The chickens have been very happy freeranging throughout the yard.

They are fertilizing and eating tons of bugs and ticks.

We got our cold weather crops in. Brocoli, spinach, lettuce, peas, beans and onions. We'll be planting the rest of the garden soon.

Happy May Day!

Guess What I've Been Doing?

Terrible pictures from my cell phone but my camera is cranky.

197 Tomatoes, 47 cucumbers, 8 more Zucchini, 2 Pumpkins, and buckets of Basil and Fennel.

That's my kitchen table.
I'd like to thank my children for helping with the harvest.
I'm sure there will be more Tomatoes tomorrow.
Much love and thanks to my husband who peeled,
seeded, diced and cooked tomatoes.
I think he did it so he could eat dinner at the table.
We had BLT's.

The Tomatoes Are No More

It's a disappointing day. My garden is doing horribly. I had big plans to do lots of canning and preserving to help save money. It's not going to happen.

Web worms have attacked my new Apple Tree.

These are the sad remnants of my tomato plants.

All rotten, black tomatoes filled with blight.

Too much rain. Too little sun. It's a sad day.

How Doesn't Your Garden Grow

It's been a whirlwind week. Last week I had two days of lunch dates and made a fabulous meal and totally yummy dressing to go with it. I'll post the recipes tomorrow. I had several meetings for the Capital Campaign at church and another for our homeschool group. My youngest daughter had soccer practice and a tournament Saturday and she turned an insane 10 years old today. In the midst of all of this my Lyme disease gave me much difficulty causing me to miss work. I'm very tired of it being a part of my life...I have things to do!

This past week brought Rhode Island yet more rain. I'm very worried about my garden. Friday night we had very high winds and all of my corn was uprooted and we had to replant them and create a support system for them. We also planted 36 tomato plants this year in hopes of canning and preserving most of them for sauce and such. With the tremendous amounts of rain we have had, I'm afraid the tomatoes have blight and many are already rotting. If we get a handful this year we will be lucky. A few cherry tomatoes are ripening but I just don't know how many we'll get before the plants die. Not too much I can do about it but it is disappointing and will not save us much money this year as we had hoped.

The fog has been rolling in every night. This is a view of the back of my house in the fog.

However, the flowers seem to be doing well and loving the rain. Is there anything prettier than day lillies right after the rain?

My Echinacea is in full bloom and loaded with butterflys and bees.

This is the side garden next to the pool.

The plants around our Koi pond are doing well. We haven't seen the pesky Heron in several weeks and my Koi are growing at an alarming rate. Can you see how large they are?

Look how fast the fog rolled in. This picture was taken just about two minutes later than the picture above it. I love the fog. Murder on the hair but good for my soul.

Some of the garden is doing very well. I've picked several cucumbers. They were delicious with just a little salt.

From a distance, everything looks like it's doing well. The weeds especially.

I've picked lots of Zuchinni. Tomorrow I will make some breakfast muffins.

The herb garden is thriving.

Golden Oregano glows in the evening hours.

I hope some of my garden turns out ok. How is yours doing?

Soap Making Part Two and Our Busy Weekend

This weekend I was able to turn the homemade soap out of the mold and cut it into bars. My pastry scraper made short work of cutting the soap. Each of the homeschooling moms who participated with take home eight bars of soap. The color is not good on this picture but the soap is an earthy marbled color and smells of ginger, lime and patchouli. Here it looks drab gray.

The bars cut very easily once I figured out that there was a hard melamine board underneath it.

Aren't they pretty all lined up?

Stewie the wonder dog ran and ran all weekend. He's been jogging three miles every morning with my husband and comes back ready for play. He got some playtime in the kiddie pool too while we swam in the somewhat chilly 72 degree pool.

Morgan and her best friend from next door played in the trees.

The husband had to put more fencing up on the inside of our fencing around our garden. We've had a huge amounts of rabbits this year and the baby bunnies have been destroying my garden. They ate what few peas I had and chewed off all my sunflowers leaving me some just beautiful stalks of nothing. The baby bunnies squeeze right thru the lattice work on the fence and helped themselves to the lettuce and a few ears of corn. Larry spent a couple hours yesterday stapling new chicken wire to the inside of the fencing to keep them out.

Despite all of the rain we've had, the garden is doing surprisingly well. The corn has taken off, the cukes are doing well on the new teepee system I'm trying for the first time this year, and the marigolds are mostly working to keep the bugs away. I do have an organic pest spray that I use for the few stray bugs that come along.

The zucchini suffered quite a bit. The blossoms rotted and fell off and so did the few fruit we had. Now that the sun is out they are producing many more flowers and hopefully fruit.

The cherry tomatoes are loaded with fruit.

I made some homemade pita chips yesterday to have with some hummus.

And Rice Krispy treats that lasted a whole 30 seconds.

Sadly, we lost one of our Dominique chicks this weekend. She got very sick on Friday, rallied on Saturday but quickly deteriorated on Sunday. She spent the last 3 days living in our kitchen in a crate. We named her Hope and buried her outside under the pine tree.

All of our other chicks are thriving. This is the White Rock that still isn't named.

The babies are outside regularly now and are separated from the big girls for a while longer. The heat lamp is now off in their pen and they've grown so much. I do think we might have another Rooster in our new group. If so, he'll have to find a new home.

The big girls enjoyed foraging out of the pen. I need to build some fenced area to keep them in our yard. They keep wandering over to the neighbors and the Rooster crows on their doorstep. They are also hiding in poison ivy and do not make it easy when I need to get them back in the coop. The new babies will be out foraging soon so trying to corral 15 chickens will be no picnic.

The mama sparrow continues to yell at us. She's had two broods of babies already this year.

Moonlight, our guard cat likes to sit on top of the chicken coop and take in the scenery. She doesn't bother with the chickens at all and only gets upset if the chickens take her favorite dirt spot under the tree. Mostly she takes a 23 hour nap each day and then manages to drag her behind to a food bowl. We keep her around because she is the best mouser ever. I just wish she didn't feel a need to share her discoveries with me.

Hope you all had a great Fourth of July!

Visitors to My Garden

I've been in blogger slacker land. Life is busy. We've been having trouble with a Heron who has breakfast every mornign at our Koi pond. So far he has eaten three prized Shebunkins. Okay well two. One he left on the mulch for us, disemboweled, apparently from a full belly. I'm not happy. I've declared war on this bird. Koi are expensive and he will not dine at the all you can eat buffet. Larry first saw the culprit the other morning when he returned from his jog. The bird was happily grazing, finding which fish were most delicious. Larry scared him off and the Heron roosted in the pine tree outside of our bedroom. Not happy.

Beautiful bird but he needs to leave my gorgeous Koi alone.

The Heron...sort of.

So today, after working the night shift at the hospital, in my bleary eyed stupor while making coffee at 1pm, I look out my window and see the Heron sitting there. Mocking me-sizing up his next meal. I ran out in my very attractive pink fuzzy zipper up the front granny robe to scare him off. Why won't he move? Plastic-drat my husband. I asked for netting, not the tacky plastic flamingo statues to adorn my garden. Drat. Truly a video for America's Funniest Videos. Tae loves him and is thinking of a name. Even gave him a bowl of fish food to sample before the Koi got it. Sweet kid. Feeding the wildlife that is feeding on MY wildlife.

The girls have been moved to the big coop. We still haven't named most of them. So far we have Ginger, Butter and Trouble (the one who always pecks our hands and charges the door). Next week they will be able to go outside if the weather is good. We've had rain just about every day for the past three weeks and I don't want the babies to get chilled or wet. They are only four weeks old and still need the heat lamp. They are looking very dinosaurish these days as their feathers start to come in. Each day they are perching on higher levels and spreading their wings wanting to fly and be free. Just like kids-always wanting to grow up too fast.

These were two extra tomato plants that I had and no room in my garden to plant them. I couldn't bear to throw them out so they went in a planter. I'll move them to a bigger planter tomorrow. I planted 36 tomato plants in hopes of doing massive canning/preserving this year.

The Mint is doing well and is delicious in homemade iced tea, Greek pork and of course Mojitos!

Can you hear the four baby Wrens inside? Both the Mom and Dad are very busy feeding their babies but still find time to yell at me when I'm in the garden. They are very ungrateful even though I supply them with numerous bugs in the garden.

The sunflowers are starting to come up but I have to replant all my gourds. Not one sprout this year. I don't know if it is all the rain and lack of sun but the pumpkins haven't sprouted at all either. How frustrating. My Dad always grew sunflowers so when they are in full bloom I feel very connected to him. It's like his face smiling on my garden.

The visitors to my garden are many. These tiny white flowers are everywhere and you wouldn't notice them unless you got up close. I have no idea what they are but they are a pleasant surprise and seem to be everywhere.

The view off of our upper deck overlooking our garden with the chicken coop and future goat barn in the back.

Morgan and her friend Gab on the swings.

The side yard, pool and Koi pond.

I don't know what these flowers are. Someone told me they were Oxalis, but they resemble Primose so I really have no idea. They are just beautiful and the bees love them. Anyone know what they are?

My Lavender needs to be picked tomorrow at the latest. The blossoms are just starting to open and are at their peak. I will dry some and make sleep pillows out of the rest.

My Favorite Ballerina Rose.

It is supposed to be a dwarf variety but with all the rain we've had someone forgot to tell the plants that they are dwarf. Just beautiful. The weeding has gotten away from me. Three weeks of rain and weeds are everywhere and I'm not sure I can catch up.

The Ferns in my shade garden are monsters. I've never seen them this big.

The pink Astilbe is just starting to bloom.

The Wild Honeysuckle is just about ready to bloom. Next week, the heady smell will be overwhelming and the bees will buzz and the Hummingbirds will be in their glory.

We had our first Echinacea start to bloom. Our friend from church, Dan, is going to harvest a bunch of these and make an Echinacea tincture.

The Clematis is loving the rain and has spread all over my fence surrounding the pool.

Another Clematis that is stunning.

A weed that I wish I knew what it was. Very pretty. Can I eat it or make a jam?

My water lillies are blooming.

The Bullfrogs were resting in the warm sun today.

And smaller frogs hid in the mulch. Can you see me?

Even this Garden snake found glory in the day was basking in the warm sun on the rocks surrounding the pond. He seemed to have a full belly of something.

Is there any better month than June?