My newest garden project in the works!!

this is my favorite picture

I am gardening full swing here on the farm and at our vacation spot both.

I really need to have Danny cloned, several times over actually. His boss has wanted to have him cloned for many years too. I need one or two of him making money to support my habits and at least two of him to help with the mans work around the farm!!!!

Above are many pictures of my Purple Flowering Plum tree that has been here for maybe 7 years. I just love it year round. This is the best year for the blooms that I have seen yet, of course the bigger the tree the more impact it has. I love it so much that it was an obvious choice in my book to put in the yard at the vacation rental. I wanted a great year round maintenance free tree. I bought one of these and took it down there this weekend. When I was telling Danny about which tree I had decided on he said.....

"Don't tell me you are like all those other dummies around here who have all those beautiful flowering, weeping peach and cherry trees that do not bear fruit! Why would you want a tree that is not going to have any fruit on it?"

Well...................where do I begin here?.............he has always told me when I asked for "fruit bearing" trees that it was way too expensive to buy the sprays and such to keep them maintained and would shoot me down every time I mentioned it. He had mentioned last year that he would really love a standard size cherry tree but other than that it was a no go.

Not any more!!!! I have now "let him talk me into fruit trees" hahahahaha it's his idea now and you all know it is much better when it is the mans idea!! Right girls??

So my new gardening project is fruit trees all over the place....both places. The best though is that I am going to espalier trees around my front perennial garden and above my vegetable garden. I have always just drooled over an espaliered fence of fruit trees in magazines. I have now found many many many of them on youtube also. More eye candy for my soul!!!!!!

Please go check this one out on youtube!! I think you will then understand where I am coming from!!!

I have also found many great websites about Organic Home Orcharding!!

By the way, the pictures above were not edited!!!!!!!!!!

Gotta go mow the lawn now!

Oh my aching body.......

The last three days were spent at The Fairy's Rest working on the yard.

We worked up the yard and sewed the grass.

He put the back deck up but no rails or steps yet.

It was gorgeous weather, 82 by day and 58 by night!

But oh my aching body. I have posted befores and afters but I am not sure that you can even tell any difference but we sure can. I am proud!!

after


before

after

before

after

What? I have been looking for you!

Did I say you could have a break?

No! Get back to work!!

He worked soooooo hard this weekend!

I love him!!

I sure did love my bed too.

Oh so comfy!!!!

I hope your Easter weekend wasn't as tiring as ours!!

Pouting Pany's New Potting Bench...

I had this table that was not very pretty that came as a set with 4 chairs that I needed for the rental home. The table was pretty rough actually so it was thrown in for free with chairs. I knew I could always use table space somewhere.

Well yes I can!!!


I have always wanted a potting bench. Even when I had my greenhouse in use I didn't really have a neat potting bench like I wanted. Since we converted the greenhouse to a hottub room I have not had anywhere to pot plants that was convenient. So today the wheels got to turning faster than I could catch them!! I love those days when a truly brilliant idea comes to me and the idea is turned to something more than a mere idea by the end of the day!!! Don't you just love those days too??


The twin bed headboard was a yard sale purchase a couple years ago for $6 and I had plans to make a garden bench out of it. You can still see the holes where the bed frame hooks in but they will be hidden when my dearest husband (who is very grouchy tonight and despite the fact that he loves Pouting Pany's Potting Bench that she made all by herself, would not help her with this one little part of attaching the back to the table) finds the time to help me attach this securely to the table.



giggle giggle giggle


enamelware dish pan potting soil pan


giggle giggle giggle


perfect





Wringer washer lid to cover the potting soil pan


so the crazy barn cats, who are not allowed on the porch anymore,
will not decide to use the pan of potting soil for a litter box.


The lid has a nice hole for hanging on a peg when I need it out of the way!


I am sure that's what they had in mind when they made that lid!





aaawwwhhhhh cute!


Miracle Gro

Artisanal homemade goats milk soap, from Terri to wash my garden paws,

under my garden cloche.

I feel so special!!

These garden tools got the best of me yesterday when they absolutely whooped my butt!!

I was too wore out to even talk about it last night....details later!

A tarnished silver covered dish for garden trinkets.

Lots of essentials that I may need kept close by.

This will be great to actually have all my gardeny stuff in one central area.

"No men allowed!" (cause they never return things)

I will make that sign and hang from a peg on the back of the bench!!

Good idea!

I will put the cute little silver hooks on the headboard when I get a drill.

Some dummies left the cordless drill at the other house last weekend.

Of course when we went there on Saturday we realized after we got there that we had left the same drill here at home and had to come back home.

It might not be the men who doesn't return items/tools to their proper place.......guilty here!

Finally I would like to introduce "Pouting Pany Bird"

She looks just like a Dr that I used to work with and she is a really good family friend. Her birth name was "Panty" pronounced "ponty"
I didn't really want to spell this little girls name panty like the bloomers, even though she is a gardening girl!!!! LOL!!!

I made her several years ago but I didn't have gardening boots for her.

My Mom gave me a really neat pair of gardening boots for her over a year ago and guess what?

Pany still doesn't have her boots on!!

I think she has ADD too. Shh... don't tell her I said that!

She is all decked out in her gardening garb.

Tools, seed packets......

straw hat, just no boots!

I think Pany did a pretty good job with her very very frugal new garden bench.

Even the paint was leftover from my bedroom many years ago.

It's called Blue Willow and it looks sorta like Robin's Egg blue.

Pany and I felt it was appropriate for a potting bench.

When the grouchy old man gets in a much better mood, Pany is going to ask him to hang her sink like this one on the wall beside the potting bench and run hot and cold water to it.

Maybe Pany had better make him his favorite meal tomorrow night

:-))))))

It's a Martha kinda day!

I found out this afternoon that Martha Stewart is on Hallmark channel almost all day now!

Why didn't someone tell me??

These are the old shows when I was just so in love with her!!!

I was able to catch a couple hours this afternoon, only after I had done a ton of work around the house...OK? I am not a couch potato!

I learned a lot today about seedlings. I thought I knew more than I did about seedlings but for some reason I am being tested this year!

My peppers and tomatoes are doing wonderfully so far but the onions, leeks and lavender are struggling along trying to die a long slow death.

I love daffodils but this is a double dose of daffodils!!

(their reflection)

My poor husband is stranded in the big rig in WV today with his truck shut down by the DOT for a mistake on his permit to haul a big piece of equipment from Ohio.

While he is eating well on the company (haha he has free rein to eat anything he wants tonight and he called me a little bit ago and said he was eating his leftover pinto beans and cornbread that he took with him. Said it was better than anything he could get in a restaurant .....he sure loves me) and sleeping in a cushy motel room I am all by myself.

I walked the treadmill today......woowoowooooooooooo!!!!

The last time I did that little number for 3 days straight, I couldn't walk for 3 weeks with back pain. This time I will start slowly and build up gradually, and get in the hottub afterwards. It is amazing how much the hottub really can soothe your overworked muscles and keep you from getting sore. I hope to be able to get my calisthenics started again soon too......gradual Becky!!
I have fed and put all the animals to bed, I am getting ready to hit the hottub and then I hope to squeeze a new haircut in before American Idol comes on and then I will lay back on the sofa and crochet. No I did not crochet hardly at all while I was under the weather, took too much energy!

OK my gardening friends......is this Cresse salad?

Watercress? We used to call it creesie salad!

I have been wanting some and I knew this was out there where it always comes up around my flowering quince. Danny says this is creesie but "It's the bitter creesie"!!

Can you tell? Do I have to just taste it?

Anybody?




Please let me know what you think. I have 10 bunches that should make a pretty good salad and I am feeling the need for something fresh!!!
It's springtime ya know!!!!!


FYI~ I will watch Martha tomorrow on the TV in my sewing room while working on something fruitful like a king size quilt!!

It's a brand new day....

a new week, a new season. There is color in my life again. I can enjoy it too. I am feeling so much better after my little weekend of R&R. It was just what the Dr ordered for my healing. I ordered the new season and color!! So nice after such a dreary winter of white. Too much white, too much illness and gloom. I am a new person today and I am going to enjoy it to it's fullest! Leslie just told me it is to be 80 degrees on Saturday!! Now that makes me happy and I like to be happy!!! That's why this illness has hurt so bad. I don't like to have my wings clipped. I want to do what I aspire to do, when I want to do it and it's hard for me to keep still. I did keep still and recoup this weekend so I have to gradually get back into the swing of things so I can hopefully be in full running order by Saturday. Cause I've got plans.....and a list!!

Lynn over at Wood Ridge has a post today about dandelion greens and she made them look so good. I have dandelions here if I have nothing else, so I went out in the sunshine to pick me some dandelions for our supper tonight. I thought that would be a great spring addition to the meal. Would you believe not nary a dandelion in sight???? Where are they? I know they are there but they only show theirselves when I don't want to see them!! They will be waving their little fuzzy tops at me soon enough and I will be too mad to even want to eat one of them at that time. I will be after them with a fork or knife but it will be to get them out of my lawn. Delicasy or weed? You decide!!

A guest for race weekend!

My man's hardworking hand is holding our weekend guest at The Fairy's Rest.

He was in town for the big race at the Martinsville Speedway. I understand he is a big Dale Jr fan. I just really wish he had went to the website and made his reservations instead of just showing up unannounced!

We went down yesterday for me to have a little R&R which was going to include bird watching, I had my bird book and camera in hand. I didn't even have to leave the warm comfortable house to get to see one up close and personal!! Leslie and all the grandpunks were with us. As soon as we arrived, the living room looked exactly as it did in the last picture that I posted with the furniture still in the middle of the floor. The children all plopped down in the middle of all the chaos to play a game of Old Maid. Then it happened. Leslie just happened to spot the little race fan peeping out from under the sofa! Well the race began at that time. There was scurrying around the track like you have never seen before at The Fairy's Rest. Wait a minute here.....what happened to my R&R????? It turned into one of our hilarious bird in the house stories that will definitely go down in history like the great "Bat in the house story", only we got this one on video! Morgan had her video camera in her pocket and captured it all, well right up until he actually resurfaced and then all you can hear are girly screams and the camera is getting footage of anything but the bird capture!! She shows the ceilings then the floors then the ceilings. This was sooooo funny!!!!!! Well I got my birdwatching in anyway!! It was funny up until we found how many rooms he rented. Yep he left us a few souvenirs of his stay instead of him taking the souvenirs back home!!! (I had the washer and dryer pulled away from the wall and left the dryer vent hole wide open for non-paying guest!!) Lesson learned!



The landscaping crew showed up donning their Wellies and were ready to get to work on the problem area! Can you tell which one is the boss and

which one is the grunt man?

They had some great ideas for this area, which includes a red mud slide.
I have always wanted one of those!!

Some underbrush had to be removed.

They are a very photogenic crew tho!

This one is going to be on their business card!!

I have to share this blog with you guys!

I stumbled upon this blog yesterday while playing around. I don't know where I found her but I am glad I did. She is in the Shenandoah Valley of Va, North of me! She has a Gammil Long arm quilter and she made this quilt!! It's a king size quilt too!

She has the instructions for you to make your own lye on one of her posts. Danny just went out and emptied the ashes from our wood stove and filled the stove back up with hardwood to make us some lye. Got goats milk anyone? Of course my goats are dry right now. Bummer. I hope the lye will keep for a while!

She is a superb gardener and she looks like she would be a great person to have as a neighbor!
So go on over and check her out!