entertainmentmesh.com
liluna.com
creative-ads.org
hotpenguin.net
The second new author recommendation came from my husband, who is a Science Fiction connoisseur. He didn’t like this author’s science fiction books, because he says his books are “weak on physics” but he loves this author’s fantasies. Any time my husband recommends a series based on a 12-year-old girl, describing her as strong and gutsy, you know this is a unique recommendation.
Filed under Creativity, String Art
I’m feeling a bit sad, having to cover up as much as I can in the garden and the yard, digging up plants to try to winter over in the garage, digging up the last of the tomato plants to TRY to winter over in the greenhouse, so I took some pics to share with you in case we have an abrupt end of season. The frustrating thing is that the frost will come Friday night and Saturday night, and THEN the lows will be in the 40’s the rest of the week. :0(
Two colors of impatiens in the planter to the left side of the front porch. (Amber attacked and demolished the others on the right side)
Here you can see the impatiens as above, plus the volunteers below the porch from seeds from last year! (You can also see why I pressured washed the front porch, porch pad, and front sidewalk a couple of days ago)
Gerbera Daisies
This is the completely root-bound, overflowing iris planter I dug out recently, now replanted. I have two buckets full of rhizomes to plant elsewhere in the yard, sometime after we have our frost.
This is the metal duck we made to perpetually fly over the iris planter.
Here you can see the whole planter, with the pole and the duck on top. You can also see my new greenhouse and my husband’s new ham radio tower recently erected.
Our hydrangea plants are just now reviving after the 90 degree + weather we’ve been having until about two weeks ago, and now they’ll probably be stopped dead in their tracks by the coming frost. I’ll try to bring in some more blooms before the weekend.
Also, some nice white.
Twice-blooming purple iris.
I thought I had pulled out all the zinnias, but more volunteers arrived. I haven’t had the heart to weed whack them. The shovel bird is standing guard.
More, with a hint of phlox on the left.
Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Mother Nature
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
I feel as if I’ve won the lottery with people recommending authors new to me.
I’ve just finished Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt, recommended by my sister-in-law, Mary Lou.
“Whether dueling with new forensics or the local old boys’ network, irreverent defense attorney Andy Carpenter always leaves them awed with his biting wit and winning fourth-quarter game plan. But Andy prefers the company of his best friend, Tara, to the people he encounters in the courtroom.”
After about a third of this book, I really liked the main character, Andy Carpenter. He’s a smart, very real character with whom you can identify.I love the way his mind works. He has a sense of humor that at various times caused me to smile, smirk, or snort. And he loves his dog, Tara, above everyone else in the world. This book kept my interest, making me want more when I finished. Thankfully, there is a whole series of Andy Carpenter books! I’m getting ready to read the 2nd book, First Degree.
See why I feel I’ve won the lottery?
THANKS, Mary Lou!!!
FunnyPica.com
This is what I looked like after our trip to the mall Sunday.
My husband was antsy, suggesting we go to the mall. We took the Corvette, my husband’s car, to ‘stretch its legs.” He only scared me once on the way to the mall. (He is a much better driver than I. He routinely sees things before I do and reacts much faster than I. One problem, though is that he tends to look at a speed limit as a ‘suggestion.” He drives faster than I do, and – in any given situation – puts on the gas when I would put on the brake.)
On the way home we were surrounded by foot-draggers who insisted on driving side by side blocking all progress. The minute there was a break, my husband punched it, passing the car in front of us on the right. At the same time, a Jeep decided to change to the right lane – where we were going. We were forced onto the shoulder of the road, where my husband punched it again to get around the jeep plus the car in front of that. We made it, though I looked like the sweet child above.
We pulled into Walmart to get some gas. I started to tell my husband that I was displeased – to say the least – about his driving. Three police cars, (two marked and one unmarked) pulled into the Walmart gas station behind us. Long story short, we got a ticket. We will talk to our lawyer on Monday. My husband was wrong for several reasons, but I decided the ticket was probably more effective than my tongue lashing would have been…
Filed under Attitude, Challenges
preschoolgarden.blogspot.com
Isn’t this a cute picture? He looks like he’s having such a good time.
We usually have a freeze in the fall that kills some things and threatens others. When I had my first fall garden, I missed the freeze warning and lost all my plants. Now I listen carefully to the weather reports and cover my garden plants with sheets. Most of the time this will bring the garden plants through and I can continue harvesting until we get a truly hard freeze.
Here you see my sole spinach plant. I’ve harvested 4 leaves so far and cut them up with fanfare in our salad the other night. :0)
This is the Simpson lettuce. I’ve been harvesting this for salads most nights.
My husband is only interested in head lettuce. I started this one from the core of the head I bought at the store. I don’t know if it will do anything before a hard freeze or not.
These are carrots.
And this is Bibb lettuce. You can see where the recently rain was hitting the Mel’s Mix so hard it splashed up on the lettuce leaves.
usethatherb.com
I’m lucky to have raised beds, but this gives you an idea of what the garden planters will look like with sheets over them. I’m hoping for another couple of months of harvest time after this first frost.
This isn’t Amber, but this photo gives you an idea of what my husband and I were dealing with this morning.
I told you in another post that we were going to clean out and empty the hummingbird birdbath today. My husband built a very nice water system for it, using a trash can to hold water and a toilet valve. The system regulated itself, so that if the water level got too low, it allowed the hose to fill it up and then turn off. Because of this closed system we didn’t notice any change in our water bill, even though the birdbath flowed all spring and summer, 12 hours each day on a timer.
I cleaned out the actual birdbath and we’ll store the decorations, timer, etc., in the garage for the winter. We dumped the trash can off the deck into the yard below. My husband was resting, keeping me company and drinking some hot apple cider when we heard the distinctive sound that Amber makes when she finds water. She paws it rapidly, spreading it everywhere, having a great old time.
THIS time it was even more wonderful because it was MUD! By the time we heard the pawing, she was covered in mud from stem to stern, laughing while she made the mud go everywhere. She then laid down in it. GREAT.
It’s in the high 50s with a healthy, gusty wind today, but we chained Amber to the porch and hosed her off as well as we could, albeit protesting dog. We sat on the deck while she shook herself over and over and then got her on the back porch where we could dry her off with towels. She didn’t like THAT, either.
Needless to say, progress on finishing cleaning up the deck came to a halt with the dog wash. We’re now taking a break and regrouping.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
We’ve been enjoying a reprieve from the 90 degree weather lately. I was just breathing a huge sigh of relief and then last night the weather man was talking about the first chance of an area-wide FREEZE will be Saturday night into Sunday. WHAT? WHAT! We’ve only had three days of fall!
So – added to my outdoor list for the week is
Anything else I get done will be ‘gravy.’
I hope you have a good day today.
Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Greenwood, Mother Nature, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We have a LOT to do outside.
We have a lot of HAVE-TO’S – where we’re acting like grownups, making sure we’re ready for the coming cold weather. In this group, my husband is turning off the irrigation system that automatically waters everything in all the planters around the house, plus the deck planters. In doing this, he found that two of the three outside faucets leak. This isn’t surprising after 30 years, I guess, so we went to Yeagers and got some replacement washers and he’s trying to get them installed in all three faucets. He finished the one for the well house, and is now working on the two on the back of the house. To do THAT, he has to shut off the water to the house. Always happy to do my part, I immediately wanted to get a glass of water from the tap and go to the bathroom…
We also have the group of things that SHOULD be done to show that someone cares what things look like up here. In this group is weed whacking, weed and bug killing, cleaning up the beds around the house that are now full of leaves, pruning, etc. I did some of the pressure washing this morning. This afternoon I’m doing some of the weed whacking. I’ve been at it for a couple of hours now, so I’m taking a break and drinking some water. I’ll heck on my husband’s progress, armed with more kleenex and band-aids, and then I’ll do another hitch. None of the ‘should’s’ will be finished quickly. I figure if we try to do a bit each day, eventually we’ll get things under control or run out of good weather.
Finally, we have my real LOVE, working in my raised bed square foot garden. The fall garden is small, but is coming along fine. I’m still waiting for my book on the basics of getting my greenhouse organized well and running right. I’m supposed to get the book by Halloween or before. I’m watching the weather forecast for when we’re due for frosts or freezes, and I MAY have to go ahead and dig up a few things before I have a clue what I’m doing. I have some sheets ready to put over the garden plants at night, so hopefully I can keep that going until we have a deep freeze.
I love this time of year, thought I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by my to-do list. I keep reminding myself – one day at a time…
beginwithyes
My husband helped me hook up the pressure washer this morning.
PLAN A: I was planning to use it on our brick planters which have hard water stains on them. I worked and worked and then finally conceded that the pressure washing wasn’t doing anything. I guess the next step is to get some muriatic acid or other hard water stain remover, gloves, old clothes and shoes, and goggles and see what I can do.
PLAN B: Since we had the pressure washer hooked up, I went ahead and cleaned the front porch, porch pad, and the sidewalk that runs from the front porch to the garage/driveway pad.
I’m not finished with the pressure washer for the year, but I feel that I made significant progress with it today. I could become addicted to this thing. If other tools made SUCH a difference and lasted for a reasonable period of time, I would be a MUCH better housekeeper…
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
Filed under Creativity, String Art
Lesley Harrison-“Time For Play”
Amanda Clark – “Owl Power”
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
liveworktravelusa.com
Mike-Pumkowski-www.designbolts.com
Butterfly String Art by StringTheoryVan on Etsy
string art -by_mflows – pinterest
Filed under Creativity, String Art
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
Alluring with Amal-Save Trees Save Earth-via Cathy Ruggiero
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
I found poor, neglected Amber like this awhile ago. She had only been out three times this morning, once with my husband playing ball with her, so I took pity on her and took her out again.
A cold front came through about 1am, bringing lots of rain (FINALLY!) and cooler temperatures through the end of the week, we hope. I went out, jacket on, dog zapper in one hand, coffee in the other, dog treats in my right jeans pocket, to see what the storm had wrought.
We went first to see if the greenhouse and the ham radio tower were still up after all the high wind. Both are doing fine. Whew!
Amber found wonderful branches in the yard, picking them up and running around like a mad thing with them clamped in her teeth. She had a large one that, when she had one part of it in her mouth, the other part came up across her face making it hard to see out. She still ran around, doing a victory dance, clearly saying, “Look at ME!”
Everything was gloriously wet, and the sky was promising more to come, so we walked from the greenhouse all the way across our property out to the shop and the garden. On the way back to the house I saw one, bright red leaf on the ground. Almost buried by the other leaves, I almost missed it. It has been so dry the whole past month that the leaves were coming down due to lack of water, rather than falling temperatures, so we haven’t had much color here.
Of course, the minute I picked it up, Amber wanted to EAT it. I brought it in so I could take a picture of this sole sign of glorious fall color. It brought up my spirits this morning, and I hope it does the same for you!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Mother Nature
dailypainteresofarkansas.blogspot.com.
pinterest.com
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
Our friend, Carla, called a few minutes ago, asking if we could give her a ride to Fort Smith to pick up her car that had been being worked on. We jumped into the truck, picked her up and got her to the Kia service shop with about 10 minutes to spare before they closed for the day. It rained on us – from one cloud – on the way over there, barely enough to need the windshield wipers.
As we got into the rush hour traffic headed for home, though, it started raining more seriously. As we got closer to the Greenwood turnoff, we saw this –
2pat.wordpress.com
This isn’t OUR double rainbow, but it’s very similar to the wonderful gift we experienced from Mother Nature.
When we turned into the road that runs through Greenwood, one rainbow was on either side of the road ahead of us. Just stunningly beautiful!
As we neared home, it was obvious that at our house, the driveway was barely damp. If we hadn’t helped Carla, we would have missed the whole thing.
Not to be TOO greedy, I’m hoping we see a few meteors tonight from the Orionid Meteor Shower.…
Filed under Mother Nature
I just finished my planting for the day. I planted two celery plants from the bottoms I started in the house. (These are easy. Just cut off the bottom 2 inches of each bunch of celery and put them in a dish of water. When they have leaves showing well, transplant them to the garden.) If you want them to look like the bunches you get from the store, tie the little branches together with string. I just let them grow naturally, harvesting individual stalks when they look large enough.
judyscottagegarden.blogspot.com
I told you that I dug out all the iris plants from the new iris planter in the back yard. The planter was totally root-bound (though I’m not sure that’s what you call it with iris). I don’t know how many rhizomes I dug out, but they filled two large buckets. Since I started with 15 plants two years ago, I again chose 15 rhizomes to replant. I’m going to choose several other places before winter to relocate the other ones. My husband wants more up and down the driveway. We’ll also plant some on the way to our shop, plus I want to have at least a couple of iris areas in the back yard. We’re not in a big hurry to do this, as I want to concentrate on weed whacking, lawn edging and weed killing, plus cleaning up flower planters first.
gardenerspath.com
I decided to try to start a head lettuce plant in the same manner I do for celery. I slammed the lettuce on the counter to make the core pop out, then put it in water. I planted the seedling, which looked much like these, except smaller, today. We’ll see how it does.
I took Amber out to the garden this morning. I tried to harvest while she ‘helped me’ by trying to move two large plastic pots from the corner of the garden, take them under one of the raised bed planters and chew on them. I discouraged that, so she found some of the black weed barrier under some of the wood chip mulch and managed to pull some up. At this point, I thanked her for her help and put her on the other side of the fence to roam around until I got to a stopping point.
I harvested some of the largest leaves of the Bibb lettuce and Simpson lettuce.
I pulled up all the radishes. I’ll plant more later today, plus two celery plants and one head lettuce plant I started in the kitchen.
The lone spinach plant is doing very well, giving me 4 nice leaves today. I’ll take some spinach seeds out and plant them, as well today.
Also on my schedule is to re-plant several of the Iris rhizomes I dug up and separated this week. I’ll just plan on getting the one planter done today, taking my time on finding good spots to relocate the other iris around the yard.
creativeartworksblog 