Today’s tomato harvest with more to come tomorrow! We are truly rich in tomatoes this season. We’re enjoying them for lunch and dinner every day. From a really shaky start, when I thought that the long tomato planter’s plants would die when they suddenly turned yellow, and that all we would get was greenery from the plants in the nook planter, we’ve had a wonderful season.
This is what is in our fridge now. I will share these with friends this week. :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I can finally declare victory for the day in the project of shoveling the saved potting soil back into the newly rebuilt planter!
I had just hauled the bricks that held the edges of the tarp together to the area behind the well house when my husband fell. (He is doing better – though his leg is pretty skinned up and we found a new little cut on the bottom of his big toe). He has rested this afternoon, eaten, had cold tea, read a whole book, and is now thinking about taking a nap.)
I decided – since the weather forecast is for possible rain tomorrow morning – that I wanted to get the potting soil into the planter by the end of the day. It took several short sessions, with lots of panting, water drinking and resting in-between, but I did it. I had just taken the tarp out to our burn barrel and was walking back to the house when my husband came out with both doggies.
He didn’t know I had been shoveling, and so was properly surprised that the job was done. The tarp you see in this picture is now gone, and a bare spot on the lawn is all that is left of the ‘save-the-potting-soil’ project. I still need to weed whack, since we couldn’t do a very good job without damaging the tarp, and I need to add a few more bags of potting soil to top off the planter, but basically it is ready to plant! We have leftover bricks from the project, but we’ll decide what to do with them later.
I’ll take more pics when we’ve found some good things to put in the two planters.
Filed under Gardening, Housekeeping - Maintenance, Lewis projects
Getting older is sometimes the pits. Lately, our dog, Amber, my husband and I are playing a new game called, “Who is Worse Today?” The game consists of comparing insults and injuries to our bodies and then declaring a winner for the day. There are no prizes – just care and commiseration.
Several weeks ago, Amber got hurt mysteriously on her morning outing. She had a badly skinned place on her head, skinned places on her legs, and she was limping badly. We still don’t know if she was clipped by a vehicle in the road at the bottom of our driveway, a cow kicked her, or what. She obviously was the winner for several days. She is fine, now, by the way, is happily jumping into the back seat of the truck again, running around barking at ghost gophers, and happily taunting us with her ball.
I was the winner for a couple of days, getting bitten/stung by fire ants on my arm. Apparently I am mildly allergic, swelling up fairly dramatically, hurting and itching at the same time, etc.
Today it is my husband’s turn to be declared the winner –
He made a new pvc pipe thingie to attach the newly rebuilt planter to the irrigation system. He found that one of the hoses needed to be replaced. In that process, we boil water to get the hoses onto hose barbs, etc. Anyway, somehow, he lost his balance and fell down into the planter. We had trouble getting him up, but finally managed it. He scraped one leg and knee, and will probably have bruises, scabs, etc. for some time to come. He acted as though he were more insulted and embarrassed than hurt.
We got his wounds cleaned, put antibiotic ointment on, got him into clean clothes and into his recliner with a glass of cold tea. He is relaxing and reading there now.
I really wish we could forget this new GAME of ours. It really isn’t fun. I AM really, really thankful that so far, no one has broken bones or had injuries that were life-threatening or life altering.
We keep talking about trying to be more careful, paying better attention, etc., but things happen too fast sometimes.
I’m glad that we have good air conditioning, a nice comfortable chair, food, tea, and hopefully a nap to offer the winner for today.
Filed under Challenges, Changes
About 30 years ago, my husband and I, with the help of our then 10-year-old son, built a bunch of brick planters around the house. We did that because we live on top of a ridge line, and there is basically very little ‘soil.’ If you try to dig a hole, you hit rock almost immediately. The only soil we have we had trucked in when we built the house so that we could have a lawn. We ended up with 14 brick planters of many shapes and sizes around the house so that we could have bushes and flowers.
At the end of the winter, all of a sudden the planters on either end of the front of the house collapsed. We’re not sure why. Maybe the mortar we used on those two was bad. Maybe the hydrangea plants’ roots undermined the strength of the bricks. For whatever reason, a whole section of each planter came down.
We spent a lot of time and effort knocking the rest of the bricks down and hauling them behind our well house. We got down to the last round of bricks, but even with a sledge hammer, couldn’t budge them. We cleaned up the area as much as possible, shoveling the potting soil onto a tarp and then wrapping the soil up, hoping to save it.
Either end of the house has looked like the photo above, with the bottom round of bricks on the slab we poured, waiting for the rebuild. We looked and looked for brick layers, but everyone was busy. This is too small a job for most workmen. But we HAD the bricks, we HAD the mortar, and all we needed was someone who knew what they were doing to put in the labor to do the rebuild. After calling and talking to a LOT of people, we finally had one man who would come up and give us an estimate for the two planters. His estimate was $700. We gulped, thanked him for his time, and proceeded to build the planter on the far end of the house ourselves.
We knew we were in over our heads, but we decided that we would mix up ONE bag of mortar and see how many bricks we could lay. It turned out that we could do one round of bricks per bag of mortar. So we used one bag each day, laid the one round of bricks, and cleaned up, doing this for 5 days.
I’m embarrassed to show you the job we did, but it DOES hold the potting soil, which we shoveled back into it from the tarp. We cleaned up the area around the planter as best we could. My husband modified the irrigation system pipe, wiring the ends of it to rebar at opposite ends of the planter.
Happily, I learned of a local brick layer on Facebook recently. It took us a long time to finally get him out here, but he came yesterday and gave us an estimate on rebuilding the second planter for us – one that we could afford – AND he would come today at 8am!
He didn’t actually come until 9:30 this morning. I had all but given up, but then, suddenly, he was coming up the driveway. I made sure he knew where bottles of cold water were, where a handy bathroom was, and got our wheelbarrow and a cement hoe. He started to work immediately. We went to town to get one more bag of mortar so that he could finish the job, and he finished right around 1:30 this afternoon.
As you can tell from this photo my husband took, Jose did a really nice job. He cleaned things up well, too.
His name is Jose Aguirre. His phone number is 479-285-3665. He can do new construction or repair things done with stone or brick. He is a nice, hardworking man who faced his intense dislike of our steep driveway, driving up here TWICE for the job. He really thought his vehicle wouldn’t make it, but it did. He also had trouble going down, skidding on the gravel at the bottom of the driveway. I suggested that he slow way down toward the bottom, EASE onto the brakes. I could tell he was dreading driving back down again after finishing the job, but he handled that, too. :0)
I got a bunch of his business cards. I will distribute them around Greenwood wherever it seems good. I will also write a blurb on the Greenwood AR section of Facebook. He is honest, trustworthy, hard-working, and does a beautiful job. I highly recommend him.
Tomorrow my husband and I will shovel the potting soil into the rebuilt planter and my husband will make a better irrigation pipe for this planter, too. THEN, maybe next week, we can have the fun of seeing what is available at the nursery to plant!
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, Lewis projects
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
shazzart.com.au
String Art Tutorial – The Wiggly Baby
Animal Shape String Art – Herring Design Co
African Sunset String Art – StringKits-Etsy
Filed under String Art
We made this mailbox decoration years ago. We haven’t put it up this year and have others scheduled, but this is the way I’ve been feeling lately. The heat indices are between 105 and 110+ degrees each afternoon. You walk outside and it feels as though Mother Nature is slapping you in the face and sucking the breath from your body.
Needless to say, we are thankful for good air conditioning in our house and vehicles, and thankful that we can choose when we go out to do the yard work, working in short sessions, with lots of resting and water in-between.
My husband and I are reasonably active – for folks our age – but this weather really shows up how different things were for us 50 years ago… We happily go about our days, feeling pretty good and doing a good amount of work, blissfully ignoring the passage of the years. THEN – we try to do something outside, coming in wringing wet and panting after only a short time, taking longer and longer to recover with each session, reality rearing its ugly head.
I plan to tackle my to-do list today with ONE thing from the INSIDE list – vacuuming the first floor – and ONE thing from my OUTSIDE list – weed whacking. Anything more will be gravy.
I hope that the weather where YOU are is pleasant.
Filed under Mother Nature, Seasons
I told you that two of the 14 brick planters we have built up on top of our ridge line collapsed suddenly. We knocked the rest of the bricks down and tried to prepare ourselves to rebuild them.
We found that 25 years or so makes a huge difference in our stamina and ability to work in the heat. We ended up mixing one bag of mortar each day, laying one layer of bricks with it, then cleaning up for the day. We did this for five days, finally completely the first of the two planters. We put the potting soil we had saved back into the planter. My husband recently redid the plastic PVC pipe irrigation piece for the first planter, so technically it’s ready to plant. With a heat index of 105-110+ degrees, we have ignored the problem.
I’ve been trying to find a real brick layer to rebuild the planters. We had the bricks and the mortar, so it was their time, labor, and expertise we were paying for. The only man who came to give us an estimate knocked our socks off with how much he would charge for the two planters. We told him, ‘no thank you,’ and built the first one ourselves.
As you can see, it looks pretty awful. It DOES hold the potting soil. The picture doesn’t show the new irrigation piece, but it’s ready for planting now.
This is the second planter. We have been mowing and weed whacking around this the whole spring and summer, hoping to find a brick layer.
FINALLY, yesterday a wonderful man named Jose Aguirre came up and looked at things. He rejected the mortar we had bought, both the sand version and the one with small pebbles, and gave us an estimate. I was overjoyed that it was reasonable, AND we can do it!!!!
He will come out tomorrow at 8 in the morning to do the job!
I can’t tell you how relieved I am that my husband and I don’t have to do it. I was trying to gear up for it mentally, thinking that when we start getting up at 6am each morning (trying to adapt for the school year with Alessandro, our 16-year-old soccer playing student from Italy comes to live with us and go to school this year, starting August 6th) – that we could get right out and lay one row of bricks each day while the temperature was still in the 80’s.
If our wonderful luck holds, tomorrow we will have a newly rebuilt, good-looking planter to enjoy!
I’ll take pics. :0)
Filed under Challenges, Changes, Gardening, Housekeeping - Maintenance
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
Jeff Jett just posted this beautiful photo on LinkedIn. Since we’re under heat advisories here in Arkansas, it was so REFRESHING to see this! I hope it gives you some relief, as well as an ‘awwwww’, too.
Passaros – pinterest.es
Paw Print String Art- Expresso – pinterest
Puppy-Love-String-Art-from-Crafty-Creations
Filed under String Art
Ar Al iIbrahim – Linked In
This photo is amazing. I can almost hear the plops of the water – smell the water – feel it. Aren’t people amazing in their talent?
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
African Creative – African Wire and Bead Art
Legends-of-the-Eagle-Bead Art by Sue Horine
Jo Wood Bead Art
Filed under Beans & Seeds Art
Perler-Bead-Cat-by-CJD-Designs-Krysanthe
Psychedelic Cheshire-Drop The Bead – Perler
Robins Cat 450 – seedbeadsmarts.com
Filed under Beans & Seeds Art
I told you a couple of days ago I was bitten/stung – yet again – by fire ants while I was out working in the yard. Apparently, I’m at least mildly allergic, since my forearm swelled up, had welts on it, and itched and hurt for two days before finally subsiding. I’m ready for war.
I talked to my good friend, Nora, who sent me a solution that has worked for her. I’m going to try it and wanted to share it with you.
RECIPE:
1/4 cup Borax
3/4 cup sugar
Enough water to make a thicky syrup
USING:
Soak cotton ball in mixture, and put near ant nest. (Apparently, the ants are drawn to the sugar and are killed by the borax in a couple of days.)
I will definitely try this. I’ll let you know if it works for me.
Filed under Challenges, Mother Nature, Seasons
“Sunday Sunset and Boats” – Alina Ciuciu -LinkedIn
“Sun of Hope” – Anwar Haq -LinkedIn
“Sunrise and Showers” – Graham Colthorpe – LinkedIn
Unknown Artist via Elena (Livia) D. – LinkedIn
Filed under paintings I love
Beautiful World via Marianna Bellantoni
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography, Family
This is my newest banner for my Etsy shop. I would appreciate it VERY much if you would give me your honest opinion. Is this better than the last one you saw? Do you like the way it looks? Do you have suggestions that would make this one better, or should I go back to the drawing board and start over? Your help is sincerely appreciated.
Here is the URL where you can see it on the site
Filed under Uncategorized
This is this morning’s harvest.
My husband and I are totally – delightedly – SPOILED, having ripe tomatoes for lunch and dinner every day. I don’t know how long our luck will hold out, but we are grateful for every bite!
I haven’t been out to the garden yet – just to the tomato planters beside the house. I’m trying to figure out a ‘suit of armor’ – since hosing down with Deep Woods Off didn’t keep the fire ants from getting me two days ago. They apparently LOVE the stuff, drinking it like a wonderful, rare wine before they bite/sting me. :0( My arm is almost back to normal now. I can wear my watch loosely today. My arm is still pink and a bit swollen, but the welts are gone.
I would like to get the garden under control today. I know it needs weeding…
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
BethanyKerrFineArt on Etsy
Niki Firmin Pet Portraits – “Bowie”
Niki Firmin Pet Portraits – “Saffi”
Filed under Amazing Animals, Bethany Kerr, drawings, Niki Firmin - Pet Portraits
Lettie De Winnaar – LinkedIn
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes
Jeff Jett – LinkedIn
We put Yosemite Sam on the mailbox this morning.
He was a favorite cartoon character of both my husband and myself. I can still hear him yelling, “I’m-a warnin’ you, Stranger!”
We found a picture of him on the net. My husband used a program that converts a picture into code the computer can recognize. We have a CNC set-up in our shop. (A computer, plus a big metal table on which we put 4′ x 8′ sheets of metal. The computer-guided torch follows the code and cuts out the design. My husband creates an attachment piece for the mailbox and welds it onto the design. I then mark salient points on the bare metal, both sides, with the use of an overhead projector.
I then paint the piece on both sides and then spray the sides with polyurethane spray for protection.
This piece is about 2 feet high and 2-1/2 feet wide.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, metal art
This is the latest note card set I’ve listed in my Etsy shop. I call it, “Pastel Color Masque.” As you can see, there are five different designs in the set of note cards with correspondingly painted envelope flaps. The cards are 5.5″ x 4.5″ and are blank on the inside. They can be used for any occasion. They can be personalized with a first name or initials on the front of each card and envelope flap.
Each card and envelope will come in a protective sleeve, and the 5 card set will arrive in a gift box tied with a ribbon or tie, suitable for gift-giving.
ArtworthyNoteCards on Etsy
Filed under Uncategorized
oncecellonelightradio.wordpress.com
This picture is a bit over the top on what I’m actually going to do, but the motivation is there.
I went out to finish weed whacking around our burn barrel this morning. I then hauled all the weed trees I cut down a couple of days ago, putting them in a pile we will burn later. Then I went back and weed whacked some more, trying to give us a good margin of safety.
While I was doing that, I apparently ran into an ant pile. All of a sudden I noticed I had ants on my arm around my watch. I stopped everything and brushed them off, but not before they had bitten/stung me. Since I came in, I have put on Benadryl and then some anti-itch ointment. My arm, plus the top of my right foot, are now pink and swollen, with raised welts. Oh, joy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t practically bathed in bug repellent spray before I went out there.
Later on today, I plan to mix up two gallons of Eight, the spray I use to kill all kinds of what I consider bad bugs, and plan to murder as many ants as possible. I don’t know that ants do anything important in our ecosystem. If they do, they’ll need to transfer their operations somewhere else.
I will also spray the area around the burn barrel with KillsAll, the stuff that is wonderful at keeping growth of greenery down. This is an area we can’t mow, and don’t need to have any grass or anything.
Picture me as Arnold Schwarzenegger, armed with a KillAll sprayer in one hand and an Eight sprayer in the other – taking on all comers!
Filed under Gardening
Portmacquarie Koala Hospital – New South Wales, Australia via Mara Spirig – LinkedIn
Filed under CUTE!
The Prepared Page via Stephanie Youmans Wilson
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor
This was posted on LinkedIn this morning by Elena (Livia) D. I wanted to share it with you.
Bess Hamit via Elena (Livia) D. – LinkedIn
“It’s good for everyone to have a place to run. Because there’s a time when we really have to run somewhere.” ~ Dostoyevsky
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography, Favorite Quotes
I just put up this new banner I made on my new Etsy shop. I would appreciate it very much if you would tell me what you think (good and bad). I appreciate your help.
Filed under favor
AboutKidsHealth
I worked out in the yard yesterday evening, cutting down what we call, “Weed Trees.”
These were too close around our burn barrel, so I wanted to clear the area.
The first step was cutting down the ‘trees’ and throwing them into a pile away from the barrel. I did that, but got really hot and tired. When I started to come in, I noticed I had teeny, tiny burrs all over me. I tried to brush them off while out in the yard. Now I know where our elderly dog, Molly gets them. They don’t come off easily.
I spent another half hour pulling the burrs off my shirt, jeans, and finally, shoes.
In the night I had two bad Charley-horses. I haven’t had one of these since I was pregnant – a hundred years or so ago. They were so bad I thought I would have to wake up my husband, but thankfully, I could let him sleep.
This morning I was limping. My husband massaged my calf and I put on muscle relaxant stuff. I’m already walking better.
I will take it easier today, and will do some yoga stretches later today.
I HATE being rudely reminded of my senior-hood.
Filed under taking care of yourself
creativeartworksblog 