The To-Do List

I have a problem of late - the problem is that, no matter how much time I spend working around the house, I never seem to get any closer to the end of my to-do list!

In the last week I've been getting up and working on cleaning and other tasks around the house for an hour or two before going to work, and then I spend three or four hours after work, also working on the same to-do list.

You'd think I'd be able to get more accomplished, wouldn't you?

Actually, last night and this morning I did pretty good. I had shampooed our bucking horse rug that I bought in Pendleton, and Scott and I put it back down in our tv area last night. It sure looks better, and feels better to know it's fresh and clean and aired out. It spent the day yesterday hanging over the porch railing in the sunshine.

Then I vacuumed the wood floors again. Seems like I spend a lot of time chasing furballs... or maybe I just need to vacuum more frequently!

I've also been watering the lawn in the last few days, which takes some time, but it's done for this week. That's the first I've watered it this summer, and I feel fortunate that I got away with waiting until the end of June. The last couple days have been very hot and dry, so I'm glad it got some water or it would have burned up.

Last night I also shredded a pork roast that I'd had cooking all day and made the sauce for pulled pork sandwiches for Saturday's picnic on our driving trip in the Buzzard Ranch/Seminoe Reservoir area.

I also made a double batch of Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies, which I'm going to decorate after the fashion of the latest Martha Stewart magazine cover - you've seen it if you've been in the supermarket checkout lane lately.

This morning I cleaned the upstairs bathroom and washed the floor, put away my sprinklers and hoses, picked up sticks from the yard after yesterday's windstorm, watered flower containers as needed, washed the kitchen floor and prepped the apricots for the Toasted Coconut Apricot Pie that I'll make tonight to take to Lander tomorrow.

I don't think I've every purchased fresh apricots before. I was pleased with how well the pits came out. I've been having trouble with peach pits lately.

Aren't they so pretty and summery?

Yesterday I also found some rhubarb at Albertson's for Rhubarb Strawberry Lattice Pie, which will also be for Saturday's picnic. I have an idea on that pie, that's different than making it in a conventional pie plate. It's essentially making individual star-shaped pie pockets with the pie filling inside, but we'll see how much time I feel like spending on it tonight, and whether or not I have a star cookie cutter... that would be a necessity, I guess.

Of course, whatever I do around the house, I always have two dedicated helpers. Last night Lucy slept outside our bedroom window on the concrete patio with her head on the windowsill all night long. Such a dedicated puppy.

As far as projects in the yard and garden, they're not going very far very fast. :-) Those zinnias at the top of the post are intended to go in this front flower bed, once I get it weeded and add the new topsoil. Scott made the border last weekend, and I really like how it turned out. My Carl Forster grass is doing ok.... the animals still like to eat it for a snack, so it is struggling somewhat.

The violas on the steps are doing well, though. By putting them on the left side they receive some shade from the railing during the harshest time of the day, and they seem to like it there. I'm trying not to kill them with overwatering, like I did to the few I had last summer.

I planted these perennials on the north side of the steps, since they're a part-shade plant. I forget what they're called at the moment. :-) They're just now starting to open up, and they're supposed to fill out to about 15-20 inches across. If they live through the winter, I think they'll be a nice thing to have in this long, narrow bed.

And another project for last night was the American flag we mounted from the front porch. I like how cheery it looks, and just in time for the 4th of July!

So that's just a little bit of what we've been up to - I thought I better put up a quick post to update my loyal readers who have been neglected lately. :-)

The chalk paint and the crib are still waiting patiently, as is the dresser that needs to be sanded and refinished for my changing table in the baby room. Those two things are at the top of my list, as soon as the other everyday cleaning/cooking/maintenance projects are caught up.

Weekend: Thrifting and House Projects

Foxy is my little plant-eater, so I try to keep pots up off the ground at least a little bit, hoping it will discourage her somewhat. I'm not sure it works...

This last weekend we spent in town, but that doesn't mean we had our feet up! From Friday evening through last night we kept busy with house projects and with other activities around town, whether or not Scott wanted to. :-)

Friday evening started out with cleaning out the garage - throwing some things away, making a garage sale pile for the next day's sales in Paradise Valley, pulling all the previous owners' junk from the garage loft and replacing it with our own, and generally getting ready to move some big pieces of furniture out on Saturday. When it was all said and done, we didn't really gain all that much space, but I like to think we at least accomplished a little bit.

Then Saturday morning we headed out first thing to take our garage sale stuff to friend Jamie's and then to start scoping out the community's sales, and we met with success!

After painting the thrift frames for our wedding party, and liking how they looked, I was excited to find this box of assorted wooden picture frames to use for similar projects. None of them have glass, which is easily enough picked up at Hobby Lobby for cheap. For two dollars I took the box home with me, and at the same garage sale we purchased a set of vintage tv trays, which I've just remembered, and now I'm not sure where we put them when we got home. :-) They're gold right now, but my plan is spray paint and spray enamel to protect them from chips, and they also all have a little wheeled cart on which they fit.

I talked the woman down from five dollars to three for this leather case, which I plan to use for my laptop and other work accessories. This was the only sale where I ran into reluctance at my lower offer, but she took it. :-)

These wooden boxes were at a yard sale with a lot of really neat things. I could have picked up several more things, including one of the old-style cast iron tea kettles and a jar full of the large-sized glass marbles, but I refrained. The boxes were a good enough find.

I love the stamps and writing that's still on the bottom of the shallow box. It was originally used to ship film reels from New York City to movie theaters across the nation. A friend of mine says the two-cent stamp looks like it's from 1908.

Vintage glass ornaments for 50 cents for the box, anyone? I know not all of them are truly vintage, but I'd say three-quarters of them are, and I love the colors. They're in really good shape, too, with few scratches and nicks.

"There goes Grandma's skilled for 25 cents." - That's what the girl said when I purchased the red enamelware piece for the baby room. I sure wouldn't have sold such a pretty piece for a quarter, especially if it was sentimental!

There was a sticker for 75 cents on one of these baskets, and I asked if that was for one or both, and I was told both, so they came home with me, too. :-) The lid on one of them isn't in very good shape, so I think I will remove it and the hinges and use it for an open basket.

After garage sales Melissa arrived in town from Lander, and we began moving furniture around. She took a loveseat and coffee table from downstairs, and when Jamie arrived to help she, Melissa and Scott moved the armoire from the garage to its proper place in the baby room downstairs. I was glad I hadn't worked on it at all, as it did end up with a gouge from the steps, but all in all it went pretty well.

We tried to take the crib downstairs, but it wouldn't fit so we ended up taking it apart, and I'll paint it outside in pieces before reassembly downstairs.

Because of all the other things we were getting done, I didn't get to start on painting the crib, but my chalk paint and wax is still waiting!

When we were done with furniture moving Melissa and I went out for ice cream, stopped by the new camera shop here in town and went to Salvation Army, where she purchased these chairs that I had seen a couple weeks earlier. She also got the neatest folding chairs, which were made in Connecticut and have to have been one of the first prototypes for modern folding chairs - it took us a few minutes to figure out how to get the contraptions to fold up.

Melissa headed back to Lander shortly after five, and Scott and I went to Old Chicago for dinner with the Martinez family.

On Sunday, much to Scott's delight, I had him help me with more projects around the house, including edging the front flower bed, spraying weeds, cleaning the patio and moving our extra firewood around to the north yard.

That's when I also swept the patio and rearranged, using some of the firewood stumps to elevate some of my pots. Although it's nothing spectacular, it looks a lot better than it did! Most of the planters pictured are in full sun all afternoon, so they have my spinach, lettuce and herbs, which can take the heat. The few pots that don't have anything growing yet I planted with the last leftovers from my seed packets.

This concrete pad next to the driveway was filled with firewood, but now I've turned it into a plant center. I'm not entirely happy with it, but will continue to tweak it, I'm sure. It's in part shade, so my more particular flowers should do well and not burn up.

After cleaning the office, Scott made me take a nap, which actually felt pretty good, and then we went out to check on the fillies, who are doing well. Cindy Lou's crooked knee has straightened up quite a bit in the last two weeks.

When we got home this gentleman tom turkey was getting ready for night in a neighbor's tree.

Several days ago I first saw him in another neighbor's front yard, and Scott told me I must be crazy. But ever since then he's been hanging out in the neighborhood, and seems quite content.

So that was our weekend. Busy, but we got a lot done. I was glad to come to work today, to take a break. :-) Tressa and I have a photo shoot planned for this evening for our July 4th cover this weekend, and hopefully we get a nice sunshiney sunset with gorgeous light... We've had a lot of thunderstorms go through in the afternoon/evening, so I'm hoping for the best. Today I also go to the baby doctor - on a three-week schedule now, as we count down the last 10 weeks!

A yard in the works

Even though I got to spend some time on my yard and flowers last weekend, most of the projects have yet to be "done."

I worked on moving seedlings outside, purchased a few spikes and viola plants, and also brought home some Carl Forster grass to use as a background in my front flower beds.

Because it will be a little while until my own seedlings start to bloom, I purchased a few bedding plants to get started on some color. The grass in the middle of the planter in the foreground is some kind of grass with 'toffee' in the name, and I love it. Those two planters I purchased this spring at Menards - they hook over a porch railing, so hopefully I won't have trouble this summer with Link knocking things to the ground below.

Three clumps of the Carl Forster grass are on the left side of the front stairs, and one clump is on the right side in the smaller, narrow bed. The logs for edging will be cut in half so they're not so tall - as it is my flowers would have to be 15 inches tall before anyone could see them from the street.

This grass is supposed to be low maintenance and get pretty tall, so I think my only concern is killing it with overwatering. It gets really pretty when it's had a chance to mature and send up multiple seed heads, which turn tan in the fall and add structure through the winter months.

So far the zinnias have stayed true to their hardy nature and have transitioned well to outside. The cosmos and gazanias, not so much. Having some pretty good death loss with them, and even some of the zinnias, since the last couple days were really hot, with a very strong sun. Today is cooler, so they should get some respite and establish a little better.

I have four pots like these with some of the zinnias in them. Like I said, after the heat I'll need to replace a few of the plants that couldn't take it. They're a taller variety of zinnia, so I put them with the big spikes that could hold their own when the flowers take off and grow.

This mystery plant started growing in my wheelbarrow planter, and I wasn't sure if it was a weed or the daisy coming back. Monday evening Tracy and Jody took a look at it, and confirmed that it is, indeed, a daisy, so I've started watering it and I'll put some of my seedlings in this planter, along with some vinca vine that Jody gave me that will trail over the side.

Of course the dogs were in the yard to help me whenever I was out there working.

And Link also participated in his supervisory role, as usual. The purple plant behind him is one that I overwintered, and I repotted it in a bigger planter to give it more elbow room. A few hours after repotting I thought I'd killed it, but luckily it came right back and is happy once again. I would have been very sad if it had died, because I love it with its purple leaves and delicate white flowers.

Scott also offered his supervision after arriving home Saturday from the McNabb horse sale.

Since the weekend there have been a few tweaks to the yard and flowers, but not much. I spent yesterday evening mowing and trimming, and this morning I sprayed the rocks on the street corner with Roundup to keep the weeds out of there.

The to-do list still includes planting the rest of the seedlings, digging holes for two new cottonwoods in the front yard, replacing the lattice in the front porch, artfully arranging the patio with our big stumps leftover from firewood serving as platforms for my container gardens, and moving the last of the firewood that we won't use until fall to the north yard. I think we're officially out of wood stove season! As much as I love the stove, I'm glad we no longer need it, if only for two or three months. :-)

Seedling Sage: an update

Before I become too engrossed with work on the paper this morning, I thought I'd share a quick update on my little basement seed-starting project, because as it is these photos are way late - I took them May 11.

These are my cosmos in the foreground, and gazanias in the back.

My zinnias are doing really well.

And many of the cucumber seeds sprouted and are doing great.

These were the snapdragons... were, because I gave up on them. They were just too delicate - even watering them with a spray mister knocked them down. I might attempt them again in the future, but they need a better situation. As it is, a few days ago there were only two or three left standing, so I got rid of them in favor of my easier seedlings.

So the above photo was what the table looked like while the seedlings were still in the seed starting trays, before I transplanted.

And here is a more recent photo of the trays they're in now. Those are the zinnias on the left, and the gazanias in the middle. You can barely see some cucumbers on the right.

I transplanted chives into the roaster pans I recently purchased at Salvation Army, and have spinach seeded around them.

Turns out my chive and spinach seeds stretched a long way... the two pots on the left side of the table also have chives and spinach. I'm curious to see how they'll sprout, as so far I've only sprouted things under the clear plastic dome trays, which helps keep a much more humid environment for the seeds. This project is entirely an experiment this spring!

Upstairs in the seed starting flats I have seeded herbs - rosemary, parsley and basil. I noticed this morning that some basil has sprouted. I'm not sure about how the rosemary will do, as Link has been a very naughty cat lately, and knocked that tray off the table, so who knows how deeply some of those seeds are buried. I guess time will tell. If I even get 10 plants to sprout, that would be sufficient rosemary for the summer.

So that's the latest on the seedlings - I'm looking forward to transplanting some of them in my containers outside in a couple weeks, as well as in my freshly-tilled flowerbeds.

More Destruction!!

This is what the house looked like last summer - but there will be big changes this summer!! At least to the flower beds, because this is what happened last night:

Rose bush - gone! Weeds - gone! Random perennials - gone! My neighbor across the street was kind enough to let us borrow their tiller, so we got right down to it and got the job done. So much better than using a shovel and a hoe! It has been at least several years since these flower beds have been worked, so the soil was pretty compacted. I'd also like to get some old composted manure from up at the ranch to mix in with the soil and bring it back to life. We decided to get rid of the rose bush because it didn't winter very well, wasn't budding well, and neither of us really like roses anyway, at least in that application. In its place I'd like to establish some evergreen shrubs, perhaps, or maybe some perennial bunchgrasses in the corners of the bed to surround with bulbs and annuals.

This is the north side of the front porch, where there's a little bed right next to the steps, and another bigger one between the bush and the basement window - that's the window in the baby room. I'd like to establish some type of shade-loving perennial ground cover there, because it can't really be seen from the street or sidewalk, and it just needs something there instead of bare ground - as it is, Link tends to think it's a litter box.

Another project for a weekend this summer will be to replace the lattice in the porch. I'm still trying to decide on the best strategy - vinyl lattice would last a lot longer than the wood, which is rotting and falling apart, but I'm concerned it would look funny to combine vinyl lattice with the natural wood railings and steps. Another idea is to get dark green vinyl lattice to coordinate with the house and contrast with the natural wood, but I'm still not sure I'd like that. At any rate, it needs to be addressed.

You'll also notice in the photo that there's bare ground around the outside of the beds, where I sprayed Roundup last summer to kill weeds. We also seeded that patch and several others in the yard, because we're forecast to have rain the rest of this week.

Now the beds are all ready for my little seedlings that are still growing away in the basement under my grow lights. So far I still have cosmos, gazanias, zinnias and some snapdragons, although I don't know how successful the snapdragons will be. They sure are small and slow-growing. I still have yet to seed my lettuce and spinach gardens, as well as the last of my herbs.

Here's to growing new things in the yard!

The Seedling Saga

So, weekend before last I set up my countertop table and gathered together all my supplies for starting seedlings. I've never started seeds indoors before, so I was nervous to try it, and still am nervous that I can nurse them along until it's time to plant outdoors.

Along with my various dairy containers I also had some flats purchased from Menards, as well as seed-starting mix. I wasn't going to take any changes with regular potting soil - all the online advice I found said seed-starting mix is best.

I carefully moistened the soil to what I thought felt like the appropriate dampness, then made five rows the length of each flat. The one pictured above has cosmo seeds in it.

Turns out, my seeds stretched way farther than the flats and containers I had on hand. That weekend I was only able to plant the cosmos and gazanias, as well as a the cucumbers a few days later.

This is my seed-starting station in the laundry room. The red watering can is a gift from cousin Sarah for our wedding.

Here were my flats, all watered, prepared and seeded. Two of cosmos and two of gazanias.

So I moved them upstairs to the indirect light of the sewing room. I wanted to move them from the basement, hoping the warmer temperature upstairs would help them germinate. All the dairy containers have cucumber seeds in them, and the egg carton has snapdragons.

The snapdragons have very fine seeds that you lightly press into the surface of the soil, and then keep evenly moist. I'm more nervous for them to sprout successfully than I was the others.

Lo and behold - last Friday morning I went in to check them before work, and there were the cosmos.

And the gazanias had also sprouted. Yesterday I moved those four flats back to the basement - the internet experts say to keep the seedlings at cool temperatures so they don't get too big too fast before you're ready to transplant them.

Now the sewing room has three flats of zinnias, one of which also has a few chives in it. No sign yet of any cucumbers sprouting, although they've got about another week before I'll really be worried. Now I just have to get the proper grow light for those that have sprouted, and hopefully we'll be in business!

More updates to come, I'm sure.