Check out my peas

There are two different varieties, a snow pea and a dwarf pea.  But check out the color o the blossom!  It is lavender and purple, I've never seen that.  I think that it is the white blossom that is the snow pea.  For being a dwarf, they are already about 5 feet tall. 

What I've been up to lately

We all know that I haven't been stamping lately, so what have I been up to?  Well, lots of stuff, but the most fun has been in the garden.  This is some of my late blooming tulips.  The rest of the tulips have come and gone weeks ago, but these guys continue to brighten my garden.

This is my little fledgling vegetable garden.  I did trim the grass around it after I took the picture.  I planted two different kind of peas, beets, lettuce, carrots, spinach and two kinds of squash.  The onions are from last year.  They froze and were quite soft, but then started to grow again so I transplanted them so they weren't willy nilly in my garden.  Not sure how well they will do.  They are actually going to seed and I'm considering leaving them go for the seeds just in case they don't produce good onions.  I have to have my marigolds at the end since that is the end that faces the road.

We had the roads paved in the community last week and had to get some topsoil to fill in a ditch and just happened to get several yards more than what was needed, so I completed this flower bed on the side of the house that I've been working on for two years.  It started on the far end around the rock, then last year I dug up the sod and brought in topsoil and now it is all the way and I am so happy with it.  It will look much better when my little annuals bloom and I get a few perenials in there too.

I scavenged the driftwood from a lot that was vacated, and the strawberry pots with sedum's I started last year and are doing nicely.I didn't start the fuschia plant by myself, I bought it and another one last week.  I do have several other baskets that I started but they are still babies.  I will photograph them when they get larger and prettier.  Today I bought some pretty double pink ivy geranium and can't wait to get them planted.  All my annuals are planted at the entrance and I'm having a time keeping them watered, as I haven't set up anything yet, so I have to haul water by the two gallon watering can, and that is a pain!

New Flower Bed

I had planned to fill this whole area with flower bed with a brick trail down the middle, but guess what? The rest comes next spring. Still have some planting to do and it looks like everything is scrunched up on the end, because that was the part I did last fall and has a chance to grow.

But I'm pretty happy with it. Went to Carpinito's and Home Depot today and got some bulbs for spring. Most of what I bought will go in the entrance, but going to put a few in here too. I got some pretty dark purple tulips and a whitish tulip with pink edge that will be going in here for sure! Tomorrow they will all get planted. Then we will be going over to Auburn Park to get some more perennials to put in here.

And the most amazing thing.... for the first time in 35 years, Dave helped me with it. Now is that amazing or what?! The most I ever got out of him for gardening was the year that I re landscaped the front of Plantation Park and he manned the tiller. So yeah, I'm a happy gardener today.

A Work In Progress

We got the first layer of mulch on the entire entrance today. I had figured 2" deep and there are two areas 75' x 10' and then added another 4 yards for my project in the yard. But as you can see there is still a huge pile left. There are still a few areas that are not done and I was probably a little skimpy to begin with, so will go back and add more tomorrow.

Front with edging. I don't really like this kind of edging, but it was free since I scrounged it from a recently vacated lot. But now I want to have it all edged. We worked on the mulch all afternoon.

In the morning before the mulch arrived and yesterday, I worked on my project. I'm taking out all the grass on this side of the house and putting in flower beds with a path through the middle. Dave is not real happy about this because he thinks that I am going to take up the room for his Christmas displays. I think they can sit on the path just fine.

It kind of looks like I will be spending my weekend out here though, or I will never get it done.

Scaboiosa

These are backwards, but this is one of the flowers that I started from seed, not really knowing what it was going to be. This is just one of the little petals to give an example of how tiny each little component is. God's intricate works just amazes me all the time. They start out as the ugly duckling and turn in to a thing of beauty. I love the color too. This is the color I want in my second bathroom, now that Clyle is gone. Couldn't very well have plum for a boys bathroom.

Aero Flowers

These are some of the flowers that I started from seed in the aero garden.

The Asters are by far the prettiest, but these other little guys, the scabiosa, are really interesting.

When they first bud out they look like they are all done. No petals, just what looks like a center of a flower, shown here in the background. And then they fill in with the delicate little petals.

What Makes Him Happy

You see my passions and joys all the time here, but this is what Dave likes to do that makes him happy. He's here in all his regalia in the paintball jungles. He took Skip, Cole and Kevin yesterday. Alexis and I stayed home and played Farm Town on Facebook and went shopping. It was a great day. Ended it with a chicken bbq with the first rewards from my (real) garden of a wilted lettuce salad and some other goodies.

Garden

My vegetable garden is coming right along. We have lots of lettuce, healthy brocolli and some nice little squash starting. I should be begging people to take my zuccini's any time now. I'm anxious to see the red hubbard. My tomato on the hand is not well. It has a virus and I fear it is a fatal one. It killed the pepper plant, since they are the same family the virus struck both.

My flowers are doing fabulous. You have to walk very gingerly on the deck as not to step on petunias that are really taking over.

This is one of the asters I started in the aerogarden. And here we have the "chocolate" nasturshums I bought the seeds of at NW Flower and GArden show. Hardly chocolate, bu I like red anyway.

I'm very happy with all of my endeavors this year. Even the entrance and the new flower bed on the side of the yard. Especially considering what I have had to work with here as far as the soil. I bought topsoil earlier this spring from a well known nursery/topsoil provider in Kent and was very very dissappointed with it. It gets wet and turns to rock, I swear. When we got the soil for the vegetable garden we went to Cedar Grove and it is very nice composted soil. I will go there next year for all of it.

I have been playing with the inks and some more Tim Holtz stuff lately and will post later. I love everything that he does and to Dave's woe's , and working on getting the whole collection.

Job Switch

Today didn't start out real good. I got terrible stressed trying to deal with the realtor on the sale of the house, the fax machine wasn't working right and of course rents were coming in. As soon as I got the realtor taken care of, I proposed a switch with Dave. He wanted to work on getting the "good" fax machine working anyway, so I went outside to mow and he stayed in the office. Sometimes I think we have our jobs backwards anyway because I love being outside and don't mind the physical labor. But of course, there are limitations. I got the front of the community mowed plus our yard mowed and trimmed. I have to keep moving these pots of petunias back so that people can get to the door. My veggie garden is doing very well and I had some lettuce from it today in my dinner.

These are some hostas that Marjie from Auburn Park gave me a couple weeks ago and they are doing very well.

So, the switch saved my sanity today and gave Dave a rest from working outside so it was a win-win situation. Maybe again tomorrow?

Garden

My veggie garden popped over the weekend. It rained so that helped in it's care while we were gone. I think I am going to set the cat trap in the middle though because my onions are getting mysteriously broken.

This is SO bad!

This is the remains of an avacodo plant that I started from seed 9 years ago! I put it outside last year during the summer and it did just fine. So as soon as the frosts were over, I put it out again. However, we had unseasonably warm weather that first week and it burned the leaves. So I moved it to a cooler place on the deck, but that didn't help, it still got burned. So I brought it in the house. Not wanting to put it in it's former place of honor in front of the window, I left it sitting by the front door... the door we rarely use.... and forgot about it. Before I knew it, it was a pile of dead leaves on the floor. Dave wanted me to get rid of it but I hung in there for a last hope and started watering it again. Lo and behold! There are dozens of little starts all the way down the poor bare stem that formerly held big leaves. I think by the end of the summer that it will be back to it's former glory. At least I think the little starts are still alive. They could just be petrified! Stay tuned...

Quickie Garden

I wanted a vegie garden this year and drew up plans for a redwood frame earlier this spring. But with everything that we have to do here, there just hasn't been enough time to get it made, no less chase down all the lumber and hardware. So I'd pretty much given up on the idea for this year. Until........ I found these great frames at Lowe's. They were only $40, and this is two. No hammering, the only hardware are the long nail-like stakes that go into the ground to hold it in place. I love it! I put it together in about 20 minutes, and that was including bringing the piece in that I put on upside down to have Dave rescue me and take it apart. It was so easy I didn't have to read the directions... okay, so if I had maybe I wouldn't have put the piece in wrong. But anyway, we went to Maple Valley today and got some really good composted soil for $12 half yard, picked up some chickie poo for $10, and a few plants for about $25, and voila! Insta-garden. This weekend I will dig out my drip-line with mini sprinklers and we'll be set. Besides the marigolds that face the road, there are two kinds of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, brussel sprouts, a red hubbard squash, 2 zuccini (I really only wanted one, and could only get a 6 pack, but managed to give away the rest) 2 acorn squash, a green pepper and a tomato. Oh yes, and a few onions planted willy nilly. They are suppose to be beneficial to tomatoes and peppers.

We really have no "secret place" here and are kind of in a fish bowl right at the entrance to the community, but hopefully I can go out there and not be too harrassed by the residents.

Sad Daffodils

My poor daffodils are hanging their heads this morning. It is raining now on top of the snow, but these tenacious little guys will recover once again. These are REALLY sad daffs. This is the side of the road that we can't see from our front window and the kids know it, so they enjoy stomping them....grrrrr.

This little helebores that Marjie gave me last summer is right at home in the snow. If we have heavy snow it gets weighed down, but pops right up when it melts.

Yesterday we were out for most of the day, but today I hope to get some paper crafting done. We went to Scrapbook Nook and I saw a cute mini album that I want to make for Relay for Life using my Zutter Cutter.

Laser Level

I wanted to share a very helpful "find" with my paper crafting friends. I found this at a Liquidation store but I'm sure they can be found in any hardware store. At first when I brought it home I didn't think it was going to work because I turned it on and shot it towards the wall and it was a verticle line, coming from the round space on the end. I was really bummed and it sat for a few months in a drawer. But then I brought it out one day to help me hang a picture and I told my dh why I bought it and how dissappointed I was in it. He quietly sat it down on a flat surface and the laser comes out between the little "v" on the bottom when it is on a flat surface. I was thrilled! Gee I guess we keep these guys around for something, hey?!

I have had a terrible time getting things straight on my cards, or maybe I'm just anal about it, I don't know. But anyway, if you lay your card or layout on the grid on your cutting mat evenly along the lines and the little "v" on another line where you want to lay your embellishment, mat etc., and shine the laser across the line to the other side, you will get a perfect line to lay you piece on. I hope this helps someone else and if it does, let me know.

For my other passion, gardening; our weather was beautiful the last three days and I've been outside working. I got the blower out, or actually I should say that Dave got it out, started it and put it on my back before he went out to do his water line duties. Did all the roads in the community where the fir and cedar trees have been shedding. We had the roads done professionally after the fall leaves so this is just what has accumulated since then. The next day I went out to the sidewalk in front of the community and blew the leaves off the sidewalk and left them for the city to pick up...haha. Then we went to the local nursery to check out what kind of mulch I am going to order for Spring Clean up day (we provide the mulch for all the residents). I was so bummed because I just opened an account with these people and they don't have anything except bark and topsoil, no compost! Argh! But they did have perennials on sale! So I spent yesterday planting 16 new perennials in the long area at the entrance. Three different colors of lupine, 3 of columbine, some dianthysis, vinca blue, ajuga (i'll probably be sorry for that one, but I needed ground cover), and some others. Today we are getting a nice rain so they will be good and watered in. Now I want to spend some time this rainy weekend doing some card making!

Spring?

The weather has been beautiful here for two days! Yesterday I had a landscaper come and trim the trees at the entrance and I planted 2 flats of primroses. I sure hope we don't have too many more serious freezes.

This summer I will take the primroses out and put petunias in their spot.

Australian Flax

I made another trip to Auburn Park yesterday. I really should take pictures of their gardens because that is the real piece of art! But I am working on this one, and have visions of grandeur when I look at magazines of perennial gardens. But this flax is defiantely grand! We started by digging up small plants; sedums... lots of them, some daylillies and various others. Then we went out front and Steve dug up this huge gorgeous Flax. Marjie and Steve were discussing weather it was New Zealand or Australian, but whichever it is it is really pretty, has a purplish spear and is probably 4 feet tall. There is also a giant Autumn Joy in full bloom that I brought home, and all I have to say is everyone in Auburn that I passed on the road knew what I was doing. The Autumn Joy which is not much different in size from the flax was buried somewhere under the flax that was sticking out the back window. I called Dave and had him meet me at the entrance to unload and of course all he could see was the dirt in the car. Hey.... we have a vaccuum!Behind where the flax is now, we had cut down one of those cedar trees to expose the playground, so this kind of makes up for that without hiding the playground. If I manage to get the Autumn Joy staked up today I will post it, but it took a pretty good beating on the way home. No loss though really because I took all the little (or not so little) stems that broke and replanted them and they will become their own plants next year.

It's off to Mount Vernon today, but I hope to get back to my cardmaking this weekend. I got some new stamps this week from Michael's on coupons! The only way to shop!