CAUTION! SPEED BUMPuS

Peonies

shelley — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:45:42 +0000

White peonies are nice and all…

But the red ones? They are stunning!!!

Bird bath

shelley — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:42:45 +0000

More terra cotta pot design… The birds kept drinking the nectar that was for the butterflies so I built them their own stinkin’ bird bath.

Do you think I need to put up a sign so they know which one is for which?

Deck boxes

shelley — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:42:39 +0000

Adam’s sister gave him a subscription to The Family Handyman for Christmas a couple years ago and we love the magazine and the ideas we’ve gotten from it. Just in the past 3 weeks we’ve built benches, a grill table, and today I hung my deck boxes that I built from a section of gutter. They turned out so well and I filled them with more annuals that should attract butterflies.

I made 5 boxes altogether

This is the box, the table Adam built in its folded position, and one of my new rose bushes... Hopefully it takes and starts to grow!

More deck box, more rose below

3 on one side...

...and 2 on the other

I’m really happy with how they turned out! I hope the butterflies like them just as much!

Garden updates

shelley — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:21:00 +0000

So I got all of those hedges cut away in the back yard. I had only 50% left of the last bush (creeping juniper, aka snake bush) and guess what? I saw a SNAKE! (a large-ish rat snake, to be exact) There was screaming, there was running, there was never vowing to go outside again.

Lucky for me I have good friends and a great hubby. The friends shook the rest of the bush to scare the snake away and then Adam cut out the rest of the plant. The garden is free of unwanted plants AND snakes. What a relief!

More house changes

shelley — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:06:56 +0000

We have been so so busy lately! Gardening, tree trimming, playing, destructing, constructing, screaming, running… The screaming and running will have to come later. Today I’ve got pictures of destructing and constructing.

Ever since we moved into our house we’ve thought that the deck was wrong.

We have this big huge yard and have to come off the deck from the side and it just feels wrong. ON top of that, the small area where we walk down to the back yard is also where the dog poops. Yucky!

So this weekend, Adam decided to remove a section of the railing.

Once the railing was removed, we got to thinking about stairs. We came up with a plan, and then he implemented it.

And it looks pretty good! Once we get the deck power washed something this summer, we’ll stain this the same color as the rest of the deck and it will be all matchy-matchy. Should be great!

The next step in our plan (long-term, lots of money) is putting in a patio at the bottom of the steps with a fire pit. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Want to contribute to the fund? :)

Nick-ism

shelley — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:13:46 +0000

We’re watching the NASCAR race on tv last night and a Viagra commercial comes on. My 4-year-old Nicholas declares, “This is my favorite commercial!”

I’m still laughing, 24 hours later.

One of the many uses of Duck Tape

shelley — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:40:00 +0000

Hair bows!

Garden updates

shelley — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:26:47 +0000

I'm kicking myself for not trimming these earlier. They're now starting to cover our living room windows a little bit and I'm afraid if I trim them now I'll hurt them. I'll have to remember to do it in the fall (or winter)

My peonies are getting close to blooming! I can't wait to see it! We have a TON.

The irises are coming along nicely too.

And we've got a couple massive buds on those too.

I put in my grass that I talked about in a previous blog post today too. Can't wait to watch it grow!

Adam got the bushes against the back of the house cut away the rest of the way today. We've still got stumps that are in the ground. Any advice on how to get them out easily that doesn't include a pickup, gasoline, or dynamite, please let us know!

I'm excited to have the hose accessible now. Eventually (next year? I think we'll have daylilies along here. Or maybe just grass. Something cool.

This is the work that still needs doing.

There are so many volunteer plants and grass and garbage in around this birch. Hopefully I'll be able to get it cleaned up.

Our butterfly garden

shelley — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:00:30 +0000

The butterfly garden is nearly complete and I’m so excited about it!!!

So… right now in the garden we’ve got English Asters, black eyed susans (one of the stakes – they haven’t come up yet), orange butterfly plant (not up yet, the other stake), prairie mallow, bee balm, catmint, and licorice mint in the ground and impatiens, pansies, snapdragons, marigolds, and zinnias in the hanging pots (we planted seeds, they’re a bit slow in coming up).

It was a TON of work to get all of the rock out of this garden to get the landscape fabric in but it’s a huge relief to have it done and my plants in.

Now we just need to get some flowers so we can start seeing butterflies!

I also did some painting over the weekend. I’ve got some happy colors, don’t I? Do you have any idea what it is?

Maybe you’ve seen it on Pinterest too! It’s a butterfly feeder! I’ll put in some sponges, some banana slices, some rock, and some water in there.

Our violinist

shelley — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:14:40 +0000

For Megan’s birthday she was given the family violin and lessons from Adam’s parents. She was so so so excited and has now taken two lessons. She can already play a scale and is working on spelling lessons now (spelling words with the notes she’s learned – such a clever way for her to learn!) and she’s getting good a lot faster than I expected! While the light was lousy (I’ll have to try again sometime), I still just had to take pictures of her playing today…

While the family violin is too big for Megan, I am getting to learn on it while Megan uses a much smaller one

She's having to think less and less.

Doesn’t she look like a natural??