Monday, June 24, 2013

Growing things

It's summer and everything is growing.  It's hard to keep up.  :-)

Grands are growing fast.  Five and Batman boogie-ing on the beach.


Stardust looks very grown-up on her first day of camp.


The Viking is 37 weeks-old  already.  Wow.


The juvenile bluebirds hanging out at the feeder.  It hasn't been too awfully hot so I have some hope there will be a second brood this year.  :-)


Also growing are all kinds of summer flora.  We've attacked many of the weeds, poison ivy, and persimmon sprouts, with varying degrees of success.  Happily, there are "good things" growing as well.  :-)




There is even an azalea blooming!  Crazy.


A few days ago the view across the pond changed.


Yep.  The last willow tree keeled over during the night.  It looked healthy enough but now it's broken it's easy to see it was a hotbed of termite activity.  Too bad.


I've been going out early in the mornings before I take my shower, to putz in the gardens while it's "still cool."  Heh.




We have a pepper!  It's supposed to be red so I guess I just have to leave it until it turns color.


Peas.

A jalapeno.

Lots of tomatoes.


Some stuff is more successful than others.  We are thinking we will add to the frames next year to make the gardens deeper.


Two bags of compost added to this flower garden showed results in just a couple of days!


I used to be able to garden all day long....and I did.  Up north that is.  Here it's just too hot.  Look at how red my face and neck are.  I get scary red sometimes.  And this is before 10am!


On Saturday morning while it was still coolish I dragged The Tramp out front to help me mulch the flower beds.  A great improvement.




Since there was no sun, the dogs were able to lounge on the porch watching the neighborhood and enjoying a rawhide chew.


We also spent part of both Saturday and Sunday cleaning the garage.  The junk in there seems to grow and multiply of it's own accord!  It rained off and on while we worked and you can see the fresh brown water spreading across the pond, which is already very brown from all the previous rain storms.


We had cabinets lined up against this wall and decided we could use the space more efficiently.  The bicycles are now hanging instead of leaning here and there always in the way, and all the garden tools are neatly hung rather than leaning willy nilly in the corners.  Yay!  Cleaning implements are better stored as well.  Vacuum cleaners have a home and The Tramp and Sailor Son's boots are no longer a hazard.  :-)


The "pantry" cabinets are now backed up against the shelving units in the center of the garage.  We cleaned them out, washed the interiors, threw away old canned goods and organized what was left.  The second cabinet is overflow Tupperware, Pyrex, baking pans and such. We have a big box for the thrift shop now.  The floor is swept too.  Lots of spiders but only one dead snake thank goodness!  Still a bit more to do on this side and next weekend we tackle the shelving and "workshop" in the other bay.  I'd certainly like to sweep and vacuum out any more spidery and snaky things....shudder.....and The Tramp is anxious to do more purging.


On Friday Mom and I sold raffle tickets for the guild's quilt at the Sewing and Quilt Expo at the Raleigh Convention Center.  Isn't it a gorgeous quilt.


Plenty of vendors to keep a sewer busy all day!


We all oohed and aahed over this quilt covered Volvo.  What a great way to advertise a quilt show!


And speaking of growing things.  My quilt blocks have grown into this.


And today it grew borders!  Woot!  I love it.  And it's one UFO crossed off my challenge list.  :-)


2 comments:

Bonnie said...

The rain keeps coming here. We had a gully washer last night and eventually lost power. But, the gardens are thriving! Thanks for sharing. Your quilt top is great.

Bonnie said...

Your finished top is great. It sparkles. We've had rain a lot this year too and the gardens love it.