Bugs In My Gear!

For the last 3 weeks, we have been working away in our "garden" and trying to make it an oasis for our time away from Canada.  All is done with the exception of the big gaping brown patch that used to house a brick oven type thingee for several years.  We (actually he) raked the soil and added 14 bags of topsoil and some cow manure to help amend the soil and added some Bermuda grass seed.  We have our fingers crossed that "something" will actually grow there...

 Now, it was time to relax a bit and think of the next adventure.The temperature has been in the 90's and sometimes over 100 degrees.  Since the back of my property faces the West, it is difficult to enjoy the backyard unless we use the blue chair sitting area or the chaise lounges that we recently purchased.  Even then it is best to go early in  the morning or when the sun is going down in the late afternoon.  We do both.

Somebody is having a really good time chillin out here....ha

I guess the good thing is that Scootard built this "thing" in the corner and we have Honeysuckle growing up onto it.  He used the sticks that we salvaged from the cuttings off of our Crepe Myrtle trees last year when we trimmed it. We call it "the grand construction".

We waited for a spectacular sunset, but it never really happened....:-(.

After our "rest and recovery" from all of the hard work, it was time to get "Maj" and "Ms Vickey" ready for the road.....:-)

Scootard was getting things ready while I wrestled with my gear in the house.  Ms Vickey acted like she didn't know me and didn't want to start when I sat on her.  Also, my seat had gone back to it's original condition which made the airhawk that I had purchased last year impossible to use.  It had me too high off the ground even after letting most of the air out.  "Monkey Butt" here I come!

We hit the road and headed out of town toward a little town called Carnegie.  The road was flat and uneventful as always in these parts.  But I like that....:-).  I don't like blind hills, pin hair curves and nasty surprises!  I like to actually see where I'm going....haha.

We stopped at a little cafe called Ann's Kitchen where we have stopped a few times before in our travels.  I was in need of coffee and some breakfast....

I chose a table by the door and window so that I could keep an eye on the bikes.  The  tables are covered in business cards and little brochures with laminate on top to protect them.  Cool.....:-)

 The waitress was very friendly and of course the first thing I ordered was some coffee and breakfast.

 Scootard looked as if he was about to fall asleep while reading through it....haha
It had been so long since I rode that I was a bit tired too and we had only gone 25 miles or so from the house.  I think it was the heat though too.

We drink our coffee from a French Press, so it is difficult to please us with restuarant coffee anymore.  It usually taste too weak.  This was one of those time.....:-(.

After breakfast, we hit the road and headed toward our destination again. We passed through Windmill country for a few minutes....

 And after another 20 something miles we made it to our destination.  I had been here before several years ago (almost 15 now), but Scootard had never been here and was anxious to see it.

What I like about a lot of these small towns is that they always seem to put some part of their history in a mural.

This is a shot of the main street.....

It took a grand total of 7 minutes to "see" the town center before we were on the road again headed back toward home.

We passed an old homestead on the way there that Scootard wanted to get pictures of.

I was amazed at this flower that was growing straight up out of the asphalt in 90 degree heat.  I don't know what kind of flower it was, but after giving it a few tugs, it was evident that it was thoroughly rooted into the ground and was not going to budge.  Pitty....:-(.  I knew just where I would have put it since one side of my yard gets sun all day.

The first place we ventured into was the garage.  Wow....it's amazing what animals can do once people vacate a place.  It's equally amazing what humans can do once a place is vacated.....

This was taken in one of the rooms that I think was a bedroom of some sort.  There was stuff everywhere in this place as if whoever used to live here just up and left without taking anything with them.

This was taken in the living room area.  I kept thinking the whole while that we were there; "there might be snakes in her under all of this stuff trying to get away  from the heat".......

This is another shot from the living room door.  There were a lot of children's clothes and toys laying around. I wondered what there story was.  Why would a person just leave everything behind like this?  Were they on the run from someone? Did they die in an accident and didn't have any heirs?  Did they simply give up on life and walk away from everything?

After taking our time and looking around a bit more, it was time to hit the road again.

When you are on the road whether in a car with all of the windows down or on two wheels, there is always that moment when "something" flies into your eyes, hits you in the face or just takes your by surprise.  I had one of those moments when something that appeared to be a bug the size of a small bird flew UP MY SLEEVE!!!  I spent the next several minutes shaking my arm and shaking my hand and having a few interesting vocal challenges in my helmet!  I shook and shook my arm until I thought i was going to lose my balance.  The power of the wind was not helping either!

After returning back home and stripping off my gear, we found this thing which had a wing span of about 4 inches. It had come apart in "transport" inside my gear......

 

I, on the other hand came apart when I saw it!  hahaha......I promptly headed for the shower and washed off the grossness of the whole incident, settled into a chair with the Gatorade and thanked God that the thing did not bite or sting me!

Here's to keeping the shiny side up!

To Build Or Not To Build...And How??

The days are starting to get easier since we have put so much work into the garden.  We just have a few things left to do and hope for the best at the end of all of it.  So, today was a day to put out the rest of the furniture and try to enjoy what we had done so far. The next task is to rake up the dead spots on the lawn and fill in the large patch where the grill used to sit with grass seed.  Maybe tomorrow..?

I had an old table from several years ago that Chris cleaned up for me a few days ago. We had to purchase new chairs and an umbrella though as the others had either been sold or deteriorated over the years. I threw this together and thought...."not too bad".

Chris made breakfast and was quite pleased with the spread that he presented to me outside. This would be our first meal dining outdoors since we had been here.

And of course he had to take a picture of me in my little oasis.....:-)

We had done a lot of reading about compost bins; the rolling kind, the spinning kind, the "turn it yourself" kindand the build it yourself kind.  The later of which we decided on.  Scootard had already scored some pallets from a local home improvement store for free.
 

I, on the other hand decided to just chill for a while....:-)....

So, he got to work on the design we thought would work for us.

My daughter decided after peeking into my oasis from the back door that she wanted to come and fill the yard with her music....:-).

Meanwhile, after a short break, Chris decided that he would get back to the business at hand......

It was coming together nicely....:-).  We saw a design (a few) that suggested covering the bin with some kind of mesh or fabric to keep critter out.  We had a large roll of landscape fabric left over and decided to use that since it was breathable.  I knew that air circulation was essential to the process of breaking things down.

After having secured the sides and bottom with the fabric we started to gather our contents.  We had some flowers that had been uprooted during our demolition project, some food compost and some manure to help kick start the process.  We only used about two shovel fulls of it and put the rest away.

I knew there was suppose to be a balance of carbon (brown stuff) and nitrogen (the green stuff).  Or maybe I have that backward.  Anyway, we needed the brown stuff and knew that newspaper was a good source.  After adding the green, and the food, we added a couple of shovels of the manure and then shredded  some newspaper and wet it down really well.  No meat or dairy products are to go in.

and presto!  We have started composting with worms inside the house and a bin (without worms) outside the  house.....:-).  We have a make a minor adjustment to the bottom of the bin so that it opens.  The top slides off and it will be easy to get stuff in through the door.  But getting it out might be a challenge.  We will be putting a hinge on the bottom section as well for that purpose.

So, there you have it folks.... I am officially a ....."something"  in regard to the eco-friendly crowd. hahaha..........:-)

  

Pound, Pound, Pound....What's That Sound?

For the past two weeks, we have been working away in our "garden" trying to make it my own oasis away from Canada.  It has been an experience to say the least.  We actually had to give the local home improvement stores the low down on "zones" after having to relocate just about everything we put on the North side of the yard....:-(.  Strange thing is the north side should have been the cooler side, but since the south side is the side with mature pecan trees, it is actually cooler and shaded over there.  Nevertheless, there are some that are doing very well inspite of the ones that have just about given up the ghost to the heat.

I had it in my mind after having read some ideas on Pinterest to repurpose an old vanity that had been sitting in my storage room for years.  So, I did this....The only thing is the patch behind it is so large that it over shadows the beauty of it.....:-(.  Anyway, once the petunas start to fill in, they will hang over and give a lovely display.....:-)

We purchased 5 "knock Out Rose" bushes.  All of which are struggling with the exception of this one that is not doing too badly.  We had to move all of them and put some landscaping fabric on the trellis to help block the sun and keep it from burning.....

The rest of them developed "black spot" which is a disease that roses can get from humidity and mold in the soil.  This one is on its last leg......sadly.

We added some wooden garden trellis that we planted some Montana Clematis.  Chris put a large stick in the back to brace it as we have read that the sheer weight of it can push the trellis over or pull it down if it is not braced somehow.  This variety will grow 20-30 feet and we hope it will give a good show once it is established.  Right now, it is young and is only about 1 1/2 foot tall.

My daughter gave me this for Mother's Day, but I just got it yesterday.  She knows how hard I have been working in my little oasis and wanted to add something to it.  I sat it in the place where I had to relocate some Shasta Daisies......:-).

Meanwhile, Chris was pounding aways with this machine that made the whole earth shake!  What a racket!  That thing was so loud that one would have thought there was some demolition going on nearby.  The purpose of the machine is to help level out the ground where that monstrosity of a grill used to sit.  Unfortunately, when we had it taken out, it left a huge gash in the ground.  The workers tried to backfill it with old rocks from the grill which Chris removed most of and used the machine to pound the ground.

For that huge patch of ground, we purchased some grass seed to help fill in that area.  I'm sure that after the grass fills in, it won't be such an annoyance to me.

Since only one of us could use the machine at a time (thanks Chris!), I decided to take some more shots of what we have planted. We picked these up yesterday.  I cannot remember what they are called but when they wither the remind me of petunias.  I love this color blue!

The Zinnia that we planted was struggling terribly in the heat, but seemed to be doing better.  So, I have not moved it as of yet.

We purchased some cheapo chaise lounges that we could use the watch the sun set once we get the mosquitoes under control and the grass cut down a bit.

I was able to take my first cuttings from my Peony bushes from the side of the house.....:-).  For some reason, it smells just like a rose....:-)  Unfortunately, they are becoming over run with ants!  EEKKKK!!!

I bought some traps for the little guys.....I refuse to let my hard work get eaten up by ants!

Chris was just about done...as done as he could be considering the ground was very muddy from rain the night before.  There was also some foundation left in the ground that no matter how hard he pounded, it wasn't going to move.....

There had to be about 3 inches of mudd caked onto the bottom of the machine that had to be cleaned before we returned it to the store.....:-(.  nasty!

both of our shoes were mud laden once we got done with the wash.

Loading the thing was no joke.  It weighed about 200 lbs..........HEAVY when it is all concentrated into a little 2x2 square space of metal! It took two guys to put it on the trailer at the store.  We had to do it ourselves to get it back there.  Sheesh!  Chris did most of the work as all I could do was help steer it on to the trailer.

We returned the machine and stopped at the store to pick up more flowers seeds for the front.  Seems that we may have gotten a bad batch the first time around as they seem to be quite sparse in the front.

 We relocated the Honeysuckled that we wanted to use for a fence cover as it was dying in the "full sun" instructions that came with it.  We replaced them with these that are for our zone which is 7 and is suppose to be very heat and drought tolerant, grows to be 4-5 feet high and 3-4 feet wide.  It might take some time, but hopefully it will do the job for us in regard to providing some privacy.

In the meantime, we put a little color on the fence in a couple of places to fill in the gaps.

the last battle is to get rid of  the large weeds that did not surcomb to the weed and feed that we put down twice already.

   I have high hopes that since we still have a few months to be here, we will be able to really enjoy the fruit of our labor....:-)

chat with you again later!