Ooo... This Much Rain Is NOT So Good!

Last week was quite rainy... but it's turned out to be nothing compared to this week! Rain rain and more rain!! While my zucchini's are shouting "bring it on!! WOO!!" my peppers are whimpering and withering... not to mention my columbines that have all but turned yellow/brown from being so waterlogged. My potted plants are just not feeling so hot. I keep bailing the water out and dumping them over, but yeah, no such luck. Drainage holes? What are those again? Oops...

I had moved my delphinum and snapdragon seedlings outside to harden them off before being transplanted to the front flowerbeds. I've pulled them back inside to let them dry out a little bit. The snapdragons are flurishing in the wet... I think I even heard them giggling! But the delphinium... Oh dear thats another story. The poor things have all but drowned out at this point. They really had such a hard time sprouting, then growing, and now this... Mental note for next year: Let someone else grow delphinium from seed. That or I should just sow them straight into the soil. Hmm... I've got some extra seed, maybe that's what I will do this year too. Can't hurt, right?

Progress!

Jman has actually made it out to the house and has started scraping old paint! This brings be great joy! I also now know that is has to be completed by June 1st as this is when the city inspector will be coming by. YAY! He's already purchased the siding color and he says it seems "awfully dark..." I really hope he got the correct color... I'll take some pictures when I get home of his scraping progress. Apparently we are going to potentially be getting a couple new windows too (fingers crossed on that one). Jman "has a guy" and I've told him about the rediculously amazing quote I got from UM, and he was pretty blown away by how cheap it was for really good quality Pella windows. But who knows. He said he wasn't sure how he was going to be able to pay for them...

I was even thinking of applying for another Home Depot card (ha) just to see if we could get windows from them on a payment plan.

A Comparison...

These pics were taken from roughly the same spot and I can't get over the difference! And thats after only 7 days and almost no sun! I can't wait to see what next weeks comparison looks like!

A Week of RAIN!

A week of very little/no sun and a whole lotta rain did wonders in my little veggie garden! Everything has officially sprouted! And most are getting their secondary leaves in too! I think a nice dose of sunshine over the weekend with be just what the little plants needs to help boost them to bigger plants! I'm thinking of transplanting my peppers this weekend too. I have 5 pepper plants that will be put down in the same row as the tomatoes.

Here's a quick look at the veggies I posted last Friday, and what they looked like this morning!

Zucchini:

Squash:

Peas:

Cucumber:

Yes indeed they have been doing quite well with cold and wet! So now that it is going to heat up a bit, they can really get cracking! Once I see secondary leaves on everybody, I'll put some preen mulch down. As it was so wet all week I didn't do squat for weeding... and they are kinda getting unruly in there... Darn weeds.

The transplanted garden looks so much better! The bleeding hearts are bouncing back like gangbusters, the fox glove are starting to die back a bit now that the first big bloom stalk is pretty much spent. The hosta's that were slumbering have now opened and are HUGE!! Not to mention my viola's LOVING the soil they are in as every single plant is blooming like crazy (thats what the purple halo is down below under the bird bath). And those darn ferns snuck in there... I thought I had gotten all of them out, but they appear to be as tricky, if not moreso then those freaking lillies! But where they came in looks kinda cool, so I may leave them there... for now.

Weekend Arts and Crafts!

I think Sunday afternoons we are going to dedicate to making some kind of craft project together as a family. I bought a couple little birdhouses, some paint on sale, and a couple sheets of scrapbook paper for my bird house. The babies ended up completely covered in paint (but delighted!) and I'm quite proud of my birdhouse! My goal was to make something "upscale" looking to nestle within the branches of my new hydrangea bush. It was an adventure and a half getting that hydrangea, but I can't even begin to express how excited I am to actually own it! It is going to go in the back corner where the dogs tromp, but since it's a woody bush, I think they will leave it alone for the most part. I think. I hope...

So here's what will my hydrangea should look like later this summer:

And here's the birdhouse that will be hanging out within it's branches. I think it turned out quite lovely!

I Wasn't Kidding!

Here's part of my little veggie garden as of 7:00am this morning. All kinds of little plants popping up all over! We may get some veggies out of this garden yet! Below are some detail shots of the little guys making their way to the surface and beyond. (The seemingly empty row is where I planted carrot. There are a couple teeny tiny wispy sproutlet's, but I'm not sure yet if they are carrot, or if they are just weeds. I'll give them another week to see what they end up being)

Zucchini! Their leave are so thick and wide, I guess I never realized how HUGE their starter leaves are! These little plants are over 2 inches wide!

Squash! Slightly smaller than the zucchini, but just as glorious as they break their way through the surface!

Peas! I've put a little cedar trellis down to train my peas on, but I'm thinking this might not be the best solution for these little guys. They look so complex as they pop their little heads through the soil. They haven't opened any leaves yet, but the way they are all curled in on themselves looks pretty amazing.

Cucumber! These guys are still pretty small yet, but they are a beautiful dark green. Such pretty starter leaves!

Last night I did a quick till job between rows to keep the weeds down to a minimum. I'm considering using the Preen mulch for between rows, but need to do a little more research on it... I don't want it to effect the soil composition since this is a veggie garden and I don't want herbicides in contact with food! Not sure if we'll have kohlrabi or cabbage this year, since I managed to stop right in the middle of those 2 rows. Oops.

My sweet 100s tomato plant (far right at top of first picture) doesn't seem to have grown much to me, but it appears to be getting ready for it's first set of little yellow blooms already!

I also got my little baby clematis into the ground and I'm hoping they take off like a shot now that they are in dirt and touching a trellis to climb. They have been hanging out in the front porch with my other little seedlings until the threat of frost was over (which reminds me, should post a picture of my seedlings... Peppers aren't so little anymore!) and they just kind of stunted at 2 inches tall. I'm hoping that was because they had nothing to climb and less than stable roots. I think I'll take weekly pics on Friday mornings to keep track of all my little plants progress. :)

Ugh... What Did I Get Myself Into?

So my Dad had called, all excited about this little barn he was offered on a job site and called to ask if I wanted it. He thought it might be kind of fun for the kids to play in - like another little house in the backyard. He said all it needed was to be hosed off, a new coat of paint and maybe a couple shingles and it would be good to go.

Then Mom sends me a picture of the little barn... And asks if I really want it. What I didn't know is the picture she sent me was of the good side, so I had said "Sure! A little paint will fix it right up!" Note to self... When Mom politely says "Are you sure you want this?" it actually means "RUN!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!"
Um. It arrived yesterday. It needs more than a little paint before I even consider letting the kids near it. It needs to be scraped, patched, cleaned (it currently has a foot of leaves in the bottom), THEN painted... and thats just the inside. The outside need the sheetmetal exterior tacked down in spots, the roof needs to be re-shingled (I just happen to have shingles! Woo!), AND it needs to be repainted. I'm thinking of getting a gallon of each of the colors I was thinking for the house and doing a mini "test run" on the barn to see if it actually looks good, or if it looks like poop. This just might be a blessing in disguise...

166

Back to 166 lbs! And steadily plugging away! My latest insane goal is walking 10k in 2 weeks. 5k on Saturday (21st) for Race for the Cure, and another 5k on Sunday (22nd) for the Weight Watchers Walk It Challange. I've been walking everyday since last week prepping for the walks, and I think after the walks I'm going to keep on training. My "big" goal would be walking the 3-day in August, but I don't think I'm quite to that level yet. 60 miles in 3 days is a really long way to walk... So I figure if I start training for it now, I MIGHT be ready next year. :) If nothing else, I'll get more exercise and more focus. I hear walking helps with memory loss, and Lord knows I could use some help with that!

I'm really starting to have fun pushing myself with my weightloss journey. I've started doing "Dance Parties" on Tuesdays with AP... Talk about a workout... I was SO SORE last week - but in a really really good way! Busting my bum for sure! Getting there... slowly but surely!

And a couple eggs too

Mothers Day 2011 egg for my momma ^

Mothers Day 2011 egg from the side^

Basket Cross pysanky (unvarnished) ^

Basket Cross pysanky from the side (unvarnished) ^

Emergency Exits are located to the back and sides of the garden...

(sigh)
You know it's gonna be a good post when I start with a sigh... I had to do an emergency evacutation of my little side garden last night. After the dogs broke through my little trellis barrier and managed to stomp 1/2 of the plants to death in my little "secret garden" I decided I was not going to sacrifice another plant to the dogs tap dancing routine. So at 8:00pm I set forth clearing up the front flower bed and getting everybody moved over to the new location. It only took me about an hour when all was said and done, so I'm praying everyone survives the transplant. I'm pretty sure one of my Bleeding Hearts is toast... it was completely smashed flat and the stalks are broken down at the ground level. :( When I transplanted it I packed in the dirt to hold the stalks upright... we'll see if that actually does anything. Here's the after shot from today - after the plants got a good soak last night via the hose and also some rain overnight/this morning.

You can really see how the Fox Glove on the far left has basically had all the blooms plucked clear off. And the hosta in front of it has been pretty trampled into nothingness, but they are hearty little guys, so I'm hopeful it will come back. I had to pitch one of my Columbines tho. Makes me sad. :( It was in full bloom and beautiful too.

Ah well.

Weekend Warrior... cont.

Above is the back corner of the yard that I have been attacking. You can see the patio with the trellis's, the mini corner garden with the bird bath, and also a side shot of the veggie garden.

These are the Day Lillies of DOOM in the front bed. I spoke with the next door neighbors for the first time this spring and they informed me those lillies have been there forever. And as I've been digging them up, I believe it. Each plant has about 40 root/bulb stalks attached. Unbelievable. Seriously. :-/ I'm trying to get them out of there tho so we can have something a little prettier than just orange blah day lillies.

The other side of the door has been cleaned up as well too. There are huge dug out holes where the neighbors on the other side dug out and took our hosta's. I'm not a fan of pilfering other peoples plants... especially when I'm on the robbed end of it all. Granted, they took them shortly before we moved in, but still. Not happy. The little bush to the right of the mailbox has had a major haircut. He started off also laying on the steps and covering most of the mailbox post. There are a couple hostas left that are starting to poke up, and we're thinking of yanking out the shorter bush and putting in a little Japanese cherry or something ornamental and flowering and pretty... then putting actual flowers in as well as other lovely plants.

House should be painted in the next 2 weeks too. I need to get Jman our color selection and let him go nuts scraping all that horrible paint. Pewter and white may have looked sharp when it was freshly painted... but it just looks industrial and cold now. Poor little house... it really needs some love on the outside!!