Guess who’s coming to dinner

I heard through the deer vine, the woman who lives here has three Hosta beds just ripe for the snacking.

They are in different parts of the property so she couldn’t possibly see all three from her windows? Right?

It’s about 8:30 p.m., and it’s starting to get a little dark. I think this is the perfect time to go have a little bite, but where to start. Do I want the big green ones, variegated, blue, yellow, or those little tiny little ears. Buffet here I come.

After filling up, I may need to send this woman a thank you for putting out a bedtime snack just for me.
I can’t lose my gardening sense of humor this year or I’ll throw in the trowel. 🙂

4th of July

What does the 4th of July mean to you?

To me, it represents those generations who came before us. Those hard working dedicated people who fought for our independence, crossed the country in covered wagons, cut timber to build houses, hauled water, moved rocks from fields in order to grow gardens to feed their families, and settled the towns all across the country that we now call home.

It also means we never forget those who served our country regardless of who was sitting behind the desk at the top of the pyramid.

They went where they were told they were needed and did what they were asked to do while we safely slept in our own beds and went about our regular lives.

So, as the day draws to a close, let’s stop a moment before the fireworks start so we can reflect as the sky explodes in a rainbow of color.

🇺🇸
A sincere thank you to all of your loved ones who served in the Armed Forces and for the families at home who supported them along the way.
🇺🇸

Judy’s First and Last News Report

Monday, July 1, 2019

National — Happy Canada Day
Food/drink — Had some tasty blueberry beer
Money — I could use more
Sports — Go Red Sox and Royals
Style — I use to have some
Technical — I can always use more
Travel — Yes, please
Weather — Sun or rain, it depends

News Sections

• • Animals and Gardening:  Audrey at Gardens for Goldens
  • Art:  Mary at Oil Pastels by Mary
  • Cards and Gardening: Dawn at Petals Papers Simple Tymes
  • DIY with a Craftsman:  Dan at No Facilities
  • Doors:  Norm at Miscellaneous Musings of a Middle Aged Mind
  • Editorials:  Marilyn at Serendipity
  • Farming: Primary Farm Operator at Blue Rock Horses
  • Floral Arranging and Gardening:  PMB Garden and Eliza Waters
  • Food:  1840 Farm, Back Road Journal
  • Gardening
    • California:  Gardening with Tony, Canyon News
    • Canada:  Larry at Laidback Gardener
    • Chicago:  Jason at Garden In a City
    • England:  Frustrated Gardener, Greenbench Ramblings, Notes from a Compulsive Gardener
    • NH:  Allen at NH Garden Solutions, Annie at Going to Seed in Zone 6
  • Grandparenting with Art in mind:  Joyce at What Happens at Grandma’s
  • Humor:
    • PG rated – Greg at Almost Iowa
    • R rated – Joey, Joeyfullystated
  • Interior Design:  Nancy at Two Trails One Road
  • Literature:  Laurie at the Notes from the Hinterland, Cynthia Reyes
  • Living and Gardening in Maine:  Fernwood Nursery,  Old Dogs New Truck
  • Long Island Life:  Peter at Long Islanders
  • Photography:  Antilandscaper, Circadian Reflections, Shiny Encounters, Travels & Trifles, This That and the other Thing
  • Poetry:  Maureen at Oddments
  • Positive Thinking:  Me and the Boss
  • Quilting:  Mary at Stitching Grandma
  • Retiring with pizzazz: Another Day in Paradise, Retirementally Challenged, Snakes in the Grass
  • Travel:  Canberra’s Green Spaces, Eternal Traveller, Wandering Dawgs
  • Weaving and Vintage Linens:  Kerry at Love Those Hands at Home
  • Woman Power:  Joanne at My Life Lived Full

Disclaimer:  I know I missed someone or spelled something wrong, mea culpa, mea culpa. Remind me in a comment, and I’ll fix it. Can I blame it on lack of spellchecker in WordPress? No. Can I blame it on being of a certain mature age? Yes, let’s give that one a try. 🙂

Best wishes for a wonderful Canada Day to our friends in the north today. Happy 4th of July and safe travels on the road to those of us in the US.

Enjoy some of my favorite bloggers when you have a minute, and we’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming next week.  🙂

News and Weather

I woke up, made some Peets coffee, and watched the local news and weather while scrolling on the net.

After seeing who killed who, how many arson fires were set, the number of politicians in the state looking for votes already, who took advantage of who, how our national security is playing out on Twitter, what certain families are wearing and saying, fake news, and how many minutes until the weather changes, I feel like I either need to go back to bed or take an antidepressant.

Since I’m not going to do either of those because then I would have wasted two perfectly good cups of coffee, I think I’ll head outside and commune with the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees – it’s mentally safer out there.

But, if I was in charge of news and weather, this is what I’d post.

If you were the News and Weather Director, what positive things would you post?

Have a great Monday, and remember, you’ll never be younger than you are today so go out there and do something that scares you. 😎

Flowers everywhere

Happy Monday!

The sun is shining, the humidity is moderate, and the flowers are blooming. I’ve weeded, moved a dozen plants or so, trimmed some lilacs and boxwoods, and I didn’t have to water because it rained yesterday.

The Azaleas are almost done, the Peonies are doing great, and the Knockout roses are just starting.

I wanted to plant carrots again this year for the Mounted Patrol horses, and I ran across a post by the Laidback Gardener that had instructions on how to pre-sprout the carrot seeds. I gave it a try, and it worked! The only thing I did differently was to use a spray bottle instead of pouring the hot water over the seeds which kept them from being washed off the paper towel. Once they sprouted, I planted them in two grow bags as well as in between my tomato plants. They are up and growing.

Did you know Pollinator Week is June 17-23?

Well, it is, so tomorrow I’m working at our new MG butterfly garden which is still holding its own since three groundhogs were relocated. I left two plants uncovered, and if they are still standing tomorrow, I’ll take the covers off everything.

Last Saturday, I finished the insect hotel my husband and I put together for the pollinator garden from scrap wood from the recycling center. Repurpose, reuse, recycle – it’s a good thing.

It’s an eclectic all natural piece that includes a stump and four branches that I pulled off the trash pile. My husband drilled a variety of holes varying from 3/8 – 5/8″ in the branches, I added some bamboo and pine cones. We had an old piece of tin that we put on as a roof with a flair and voilà solitary bees can now find a resting spot.

If you have ever thought about creating your own insect hotel, here’s a good link for further information.

Remember when I was bemoaning the loss of the WordPress spellchecker, and a wonderful blogging friend suggested Grammarly? I installed it, and I loved it. It was perfect. Well, almost perfect until I started having major computer issues of all types last week. After hours of researching and trying everything I could come up with, I took myself off to the home-town computer store where they ran diagnostics and couldn’t find anything wrong with the computer. After more problems and more research, I decided to disable Grammarly and see if there was any difference. The good news was the computer was working at its former speed with no errors or locking me out of programs, the bad news was I lost my spell and grammar check again. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to do a little more proofreading.

Now, I’m off to start a small sewing project. The projects that look small usually end up taking the most time.

I also think I need to whip up some sugar cookies. Which first – sugar cookies or sewing? Sugar cookies win out every time. 🙂

Happy mid June to all of you.

Here’s a bouquet of flowers from me to you, and I’m hoping life is treating you well.

One note

I’ve been singing one note lately – gardening. 😎

Dwarf Korean Lilac at its peak.

I won’t put you to sleep by detailing what I’ve been doing. Let’s just say I’ve been catching up on weeding, pruning, planting containers, and, of course, moving plants around because that’s what gardeners do.

I’ve also taken some time to just sit and enjoy being outside in the beautiful weather we’ve been having. Windows are open, and the fragrance of the lilacs finishing up their season is unbelievable.

Shade garden, poppy and iris, clematis, outdoor potting table (Yes, I have two potting tables, inside and out. Doesn’t everyone?), container planting, side garden

If you remember, the MGs are fighting rodents at a new native pollinator garden which we found out is a family of groundhogs. One garden tender is a resident, and he has set a trap. So far, he’s relocated two members of the family, and we’re hoping to relocate the entire group so the garden has an opportunity to prosper.

I worked out there on Saturday and found that the majority of the plants are recovering except for the lupines and butterfly weed. But, did the tomato cages with plastic fencing, chicken wire cloches, and dollar store waste cans all pinned to the ground with landscape pins work? Yes, they did. 🙂

I also went on a gardening tour last week to a fellow MG’s home. She has a native lakeside woodland garden that is jaw-dropping beautiful. The most spectacular feature is a pond they created where a previous owner had dumped gardening waste into a depression in the ground. They added a liner, circulating pump, lined it with rocks, and planted it with native ferns and flowers. It is spectacular, and even though I took a ton of photos, I couldn’t really capture its beauty.

Woodland water feature, Lady’s Slippers, and Popcorn Doublefile Viburnum. Yes, I’m searching for this Viburnum to buy for myself because it is gorgeous.

Whatever you are doing this second week of June, I hope it includes some time outside doing whatever makes you happy. 78°F with moderate humidity make me a happy woman even with the darn black flies.  😎

Gardening Hack

The life of a gardener is not all pretty flowers and vegetable plants overflowing with produce.

There are the plants themselves, soil, bugs, critters, weather – you get the idea. There are challenges.

I mentioned previously that our MG group had planted a new ‘native’ plant butterfly garden, and we sent in for Monarch Waystation status.

Last week, I drove over to check the plants and noticed a couple had been snacked on. I came home, searched Pinterest, found some chicken wire in the barn and made some basic wire cloches to helpfully protect those plants. As I was loading the truck, I threw a couple of tomato cages and some green plastic fencing  in as well.

When I got there instead of counting the plants that were eaten I counted the ones that hadn’t been and that number was six. I used all seven cloches, five tomato cages, and every piece of plastic fencing I had.

This garden is in a rural area, and there’s not much we can do except cover each plant or go to the expense and labor of installing a good sized fence. Since, the other ladies threw up their hands in the air with disgust, I’m the one doing it, so hence more cloches.

Back to Pinterest I went and saw a hack where they used wire baskets from the dollar store. I got lucky at my second dollar store and bought twelve for $1 each. Then I picked up more landscape pins, and when it opens tomorrow I’ll be back to see if I can salvage more plants.

Since we have no idea what type of critter we’re dealing with, I am chuckling to myself wondering if when I arrive there will be pieces of green fence, chicken wire, and landscape pins spread all over the place. To be continued. 🙂 Happy Monday!

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P.S.  If you see typos or grammatical errors in my posts or anyone else using WordPress on a laptop, please know WordPress, in their infinite ‘youthful’ wisdom, decided we didn’t need spell and grammar check anymore because most people (insert ‘young people’ here) are posting on their phones where there apparently is an app to check your writing. I love WordPress. I do not love all the changes made to meet just one group of users since I am still a ‘paying’ customer. Snarkiness intentional. 🙂