This is time of year means lots of things need to get done quickly unlike the lazy days of summer. Yesterday we got a lot of things done around the house and at the apartments.
I started the day doing the daily chores of feeding the animals and checking the plants to see if they needed water. I had covered the strawberry beds the night before so I needed to uncover them before the sun heated things up.
I had a bunch of things on my list but we had to go to town to install a storm door at the apartment building. That took us four hours but it looks great and the tenants are happy with it.
When we got home it was time to feed the animals again before going to work in the greenhouse. I spent two hours transplanting seedling into larger pots. The greenhouse is full and I still need to take the seedling on the enclosed porch back out to the greenhouse. They were the super tender summer plants that I brought in during the “freeze.” I need a bigger greenhouse!
Above is how the enclosed porch looks like!
Bill folded all the sheets that I had used to cover the beds and put them away.
It was too dark to continue working in the greenhouse (need to find some way to light up the place) so I moved to the garage where I finished painting all the boards ( 9 – 2 x 4’s)for my next garden project.
I came back inside and finished my Spanish lesson for the day before I edited and upload a video for YouTube.
KBC Apartment of Seymour
Getting ready for Spring!
This past week I have been very busy getting ready for spring. I have not had much spare time this month with visiting all our boys at their homes, catching up on medical appointments (Bill, Shoes and myself) and cleaning up one of the apartments to get it ready to rent.
Happy to say we all got good reports from the medical , dental and veterinarian and are good for another year! I have most of the indoor projects done – the new Christmas wreath and Easter wreath are almost finished. I just need to get the hot glue gun out and glue the pieces together. I know there will still be a few cold days in our future before spring weather gets here so those projects can wait for a while. I always like to have a few indoor project waiting to keep me busy on “rainy” days. The apartment has been rented and we have no more vacancies so now we can start working on the garden and the homestead.
The weather has been perfect for pre-spring chores such as pruning the fruit trees and starting the yearly spraying for pest. Tuesday I spent over 5 hours pruning our 10 fruit trees. I really wish I had researched how to prune trees years ago when I first started planting these trees. The last seven trees that I have planted are shaped nicely but the other three have required a lot of work and they will never be perfect. ( I know that sentence was hard to admit since I am a perfectionist. ) The pear and peach trees were allowed to grow too tall and I can not do anything about that now. I should have clipped the header when they were younger at about 36 inches from the ground so that they would branch out and then continue to prune for height. The pear tree was one of my first fruit trees planted and at the time I through you just planted a dwarf tree and waited for the fruit. Boy! was I wrong! That poor tree is super tall and the limbs are all twisted and overgrown and the fruit was all buggy. I can not do anything about the height or most of the twisted limbs (caused by not thinning the fruit when the tree was young) but yesterday I removed a lot of the broken, crisscrossing and crowed limbs. The peach tree could be topped but I do not have the ability to do that so it will stay. The peach trees are also older trees and God topped one of them about five years ago when the top broke out during a thunder-storm. That tree is now shaped wonderfully and I learned a major lesson about how to top trees to control height.
This is the first year I have been able to work close to the pear tree since it took almost four years to emitted the poison ivy that covered the tree trunk. I have it looking much better on the lower third but the upper level still could use a lot of work but I can not reach that area without major help.
I had planned on spraying the trees but it was after 4:30 and Bill was getting hungry so we headed to Waffle House.
I was very tired after all that pruning but come Wednesday I realized I had to get the first spray done because the tree buds were beginning to swell. I had a lot planned for the day so the spray was put off until late afternoon.
Bill had removed the toilet to repair the seal and the wall needed to be touched up. I had the formula for the paint so I picked it up late Tuesday and I was prepared – I thought. However, that did not work out very well. The paint did not match so now we need to go back and get more paint and paint the entire bathroom. The original paint had not faded so not sure why this mixture did not match and not happy because I really loved the way the walls had turned out. It was a shade called tender twilight and I painted it so that the background white just showed though a bit. No way I can reproduce that look now without repainting the walls white and topping that with the blue and I don’t want to do that and I don’t have the time to do it since we need to get the toilet back in place.
Bill needed to pick up more parts for the toilet so we went to town. I was hoping that the paint would dry to the right color so I never picked up any more paint. We gave it plenty of time to dry because after getting the items for the toilet we went to the gym and workout. I managed to get my 6 miles in but it took a little longer today than usual.
We got home and checked the paint – nope still not matching the original color! It really looked like it could rain so I checked the radar. Nothing so headed to the garden with my sprayer. I mixed up the Neem oil using 1.5 Tbsp of neem oil with 1/2 teaspoon of non-toxic liquid soap ( such as non-toxic Castile soap ) per gallon of water and shake like crazy before and during application. I sprayed all the fruit trees, grapes, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries. This is the winter dormant spray to kill insects that are over wintering and to help reduce any possible diseases.
I have used a few different sprays for the trees in the past and I really like Neem. It is a safe to use around the pets and wildlife. This is very important since Autumn, the garden cat, has to inspect every thing I do. Neem is organic and biodegradable. I don’t have to worry about over spray since it can be used on many different crops. Neem oil kills insects at all stages of development — adult, larvae and egg. Neem oil is an effective pesticide that gets rid of over 200 species of insects even root-knot nematode. It encourages earthworm activity and will not harm bees, butterflies or ladybugs.
You can use it as a dormant-season application to kill overwinter pests and eggs or as a foliage spray to repel and kill insects. It can help control Japanese beetles and mosquitoes. It is also a great fungicide and a bactericide. It can be used indoors, in the greenhouse and outside. It can be used on fruit trees, nut trees, berry bushes, herbs and vegetable crops and it can be used right up to harvest time.
Next project repainting the grids and trellis for this season. Love being able to work outside again!
A lot done but not much finished
We have been very busy around here since the start of the new year. Bill has been working at the apartment mostly without my help but I did go in one day and helped by cleaning the stove, refrigerator and kitchen cabinets.
On the home front I have been super busy. After a month of baking and cooking the kitchen is now cleaned and organized, the craft room has been moved into the laundry/kitchenette area and it is organized except for the craft table which still has a few unfinished projects on it. The old craft room is now the guest room/family room and it is cleaned and organized. The knitting and crochet supplies are still neatly stored there since they are crafts that I do in front of the TV. The big freezer has been cleaned and inventoried.
All the Christmas decorations and snowmen are packed away and neatly stored in the basement. I was going to leave them out until February but decided I was tired of the clutter and wanted my open space. The tree is decorated with the new green, gold, and purple lights and the Mardi Gras beads and bulbs. I changed out the dinning room table to reflect the Mardi Gras theme and that room is cleaned and organized. I took down the Christmas wreaths and added the Mardi Gras one to the front door. Mardi Gras is March 9 this year so I will not need to change out the decorations for a while.
Yesterday was too nice to work inside so I worked on the back porch and cut out a bunch of can flowers and cleared that mess off the picnic table. By the time I had them all cut out it was too windy to spray paint them so I placed the box inside the garage until the next warm day. It was windy but still sunny and warm enough to work outside so I started cutting down weeds and shrub trees around the edge of the woods. I did that for a few hours until it begin to rain.
Sunday I planned out the spring garden so yesterday I checked out the greenhouse and my “left over” seeds to see what I needed to order. I worked on that order for a while and then headed to the craft room to organize and clean the craft table. That will take a while since I have so many projects waiting to be finished! I have curtains to hem, objects to paint, cushions to sew, a crochet project to finish, a knitted scarf to finish, an oven mitt to sew, a few kits to put together and a few things to repair. I really need to learn to limit myself to one or two projects at a time – that will not happen!
Damage Repair
As many know I have been in a war with raccoons this past month and yesterday the score was me – 3 , raccoons – 3 meaning I have gotten rid of 3 raccoons but know that there are three more still hanging around at night. I have emptied all the bird feeders except the hummingbirds, closed up the chickens and bring their food inside each night, have all trash cans either inside or locked ,bring in all cat food at night and still have them knocking things over during the night! They walk right up to us when we set outside in the evening and do not run away when we yell at them – in fact they have started “yelling” back at us.
It takes a lot before I get upset enough to eliminate them from our property but after they started doing damage to my things, refusing to move when I showed up and even running towards me it was time to go to war.
Yesterday I decided to repair the damage they have left behind.
first on the list was to repair the bird house post that the big mother raccoon knocked over when she ran into it. Granted it was rotting near the ground and I am not sure why this one did that since the other two are solid. But I am still blaming her since she knock it down.
We had to buy a new treated post which I painted the other day. Yesterday while Bill was in town at the apartments I pulled out the rest of this post and put up the new post .I had to repair the birdhouses and reattached the rope border.
They had removed the roof from the blue bird house so I got out the wood glue and small nails and replace the roof.
Next I needed to repair the bird feeders that they had broken.
I had to give them a good cleaning first but a few new staples and a coat of paint and they are as good as new.
I know many people say that bird prefer wooden color feeders – well my birds do not seem to care what color the feeder is as long as there is food inside. Unfortunately the feeders will remain empty until I have the raccoons under control., I have found that the wooden feeders last longer and look better with a nice colorful coat of paint.
Errands and Gardening
Thursday was a very busy day. We started out by running to Brownstown and then Seymour on business which took most of the morning and half the afternoon. We stopped at the post office both in Brownstown and Seymour, the courthouse, the apartments. the bank, Home Depot, St. Francis Pet hospital, Dick & Rudy’s, Arbys , Big Lots, Union Hardware, and Jay C+ before coming back home.
My checkbook is a bit lighter but the property taxes are paid for the year and Shoes has a year’s worth of heart worm medicine. While Bill was getting gallons of water I found a few things for the garden at Big Lots ( new gardening hand tools, a hose sprayer nozzle, wooden clothespins, and a pail to water the chickens). We decided to check the going out of business sale at Union Hardware where I found a great bargain on a new hoe.
Once home Bill went to work at the homestead and I finished washing the clothes and hanging them on the clothesline. The rest of the day was spent in the garden.
I finally planted all those poor live plants that were delivered during our “hard” freeze period. They have been sitting in the dinning room for almost a week so I was very glad to finally get them onto the ground.
I had enough strawberries to fill in the empty spaces in the existing beds and to fill the new bed. They were starting to get a bit dry so I watered the bed after planting and will water again every day until they perk up.
The blueberries were planted .
And new blackberries were planted and the older ones pruned and tied to the trellis.
I ended up watering the plants in the green house and cleaning up around the grapes. Overall this garden is starting to shape up nicely.
It was a wonderful evening to sit out on the patio with a glass of wine and watch the chickens play until it was time for them to go inside for the night. Josie is my “wild child” she simply goes over the fence to feed in the open range when ever she feels like it.
It’s that time of year – again!
This is the time of year that you either get all stressed out over trying to do too much or you decide to relax and enjoy the season. This year I have decided to not stress over getting things finished.
Oh I have a list and I am checking things off but I am not pushing the panic button, We have some gifts brought and if I don’t get any more purchased it is no big deal as the boys like the feel of cash,
The Christmas cards are almost ready to mail after fighting with the computer to get the address label printed. This has been a three-day process! Every time I sit to write the annual Christmas letter something comes up and I have to hit the save button. I just hope I have enough ink left to print them out without having to run to the store again.
The Thanksgiving and Halloween (except the two witches) decorations have been carried to the basement. I still have to pack everything away until next year. I will not do that until I made another tour of the house to see what I have forgotten to take down – like the door wreaths,
I started working on the Christmas cards Thursday morning but had to stop and go to town. Bill and I worked all afternoon selling fruit for the Lion;s club. We brought a bag of pears and I have to say they are the best pears I have had in a long time!! Then we stopped to eat. Cracker Barrel was having a great sale and I got a $30 wooden Santa for only $10.
Yesterday I cleaned the house and started putting out the Christmas decorations. I was just checking the light when Bill wanted to go to town to work at the apartment. We both checked the lights and made a list of what we needed in town – more Christmas cards and more lights!
I spent the next three hours at the apartments painting a fence while Bill climbed upon the roof to replace some missing shingles. Our next stop was the gym for an hour of cardio and an hour of weight lifting,
It was then I realized I had only eaten one of those wonderful pears that morning so we headed to El Nopal’s for a good dinner before heading home.
Once home I fed the animals before studying my Spanish lesson for the evening and finishing the laundry. The Christmas letter, cards and tree were all left for later as I was headed to bed for a well-earned long winter nap –
Me project
For the last ten weeks I have had only one project which has taken up most of my time and that was what I called “Me project.” Bill and I decided to join a gym and I want one step further and joined a “Back on Track” weight loss contest.
I was assigned to a person trainer and she had me working out five days a week which did not leave much spare time to do any other projects. I did cardio for an hour on all five days and added an hour of weight training three days a week. That added up to a lot of hours in the gym!
I also watched what I ate and cut calories down to between 900 to 1200 a day – that was the hard part because all that exercise seem to make Bill hungrier as he was always walking around eating. Yes, he worked out each day with me.
I never won first prize but did win a $50 Visa gift card. However, in my book I really did win because I lost 15 pounds during the ten weeks which motivated me to clean out my closet The great news is that I can now wear all the size 6 clothes that I brought just before my shoulder injury and all that weight gain during recovery.
The contest is over but we are still going to the gym three times a week and I am doing the cardio at home on the treadmill the other two days . However, last Tuesday I didn’t use the treadmill since I spent two hours outside painting a fence at the apartment and another two hours cleaning a few beds in the sun garden. I figure four hours of that would equal one hour of treadmill walking.
Last night we were back in the gym for 2 hours which was much needed after a six hour road trip.
It’s finished!!
It has taken almost a year of hard work to get this bird/meditation garden finished but yesterday I placed the stepping-stones in their final spot.
This area has seem many uses in the past from fire pit area to portable swimming pool and how the mediation/bird garden. The funny thing about this is that as I was cleaning a few weeks ago I found the “original” landscape plans that I drew up in 1977 and it included a flower/herb garden in this location. I had forgotten completely about those drawings.
The garden has seem much use from birds, butterflies, me and the cats. The birds enjoy the feeders and houses, the butterflies are covering the sedum this time of year, I enjoy the hammock, and the cats seem to like drinking from the bird bath.
The stepping stone idea actually came from a book I was reading last winter. The main character was working on mosaic stepping stone with Japanese letters that symbolized the owner’s mantra for a Zen garden and I liked the idea. However, I wanted to use a design that reflected my belief.
I started with the four directions and the elements – North (earth), West (water), South (fire) and East (air). Not only will these stone help me remember which way is which (hey – I’m not getting any younger and may forget one of these days) but also that God is everywhere.
The stones are placed in the following order for this reason. The first stone is the fire stone which remains me that no matter what I am facing that if I follow (footprint stone) the light (lighthouse stone). He can turn things around and make all thing beautiful (butterfly stone). If I pray (praying hand stone) for guidance from the King of kings (Crown of thorns stone).
The earth stone (flower stone) remains me that I am always spreading seeds as I walk this earth and I need to listen (ear stone) to everything for He made it all and I should listen mainly to the words of the lamb of God (lamb stone) and those words are the seeds I should spread for His words are the anchor (anchor stone) that keeps us on the right path.
The eye stone remains me to keep my eyes on the cross (cross stone) which leads the way home. I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I enjoy this garden.
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It was a super busy day yesterday. I really woke up with a “what can I find to do today?”attitude since I am a bit lost since my mosaic stone project is over. I threw some clothes into the washer and started the dishwasher before feeding the animals. Well, there was a bug in the parakeets cage – yuck! – I just cleaned the cages but it seems she had not only dumped her food but also her water which caused the little flying bugs to appear. A half hour later both cages where super clean.
Hung the clothes on the line and decided to weed around the house and the bird/meditation garden while Artemis’s rat was thawing. I can not believe I can now weed what use to take a week of work in less than an hour! I set the stepping-stones and decided to grab my book and use that garden to read for a while. Finished that book and want back to work – curled up the garden hose and put it where it belonged so Bill could mow the yard (which he did as well as the homestead and the apartment yards.) While he was outside on the mower I used the time to run the vacuum, clean bathrooms and dust.
The gym called and my weigh in for the contest is on Friday so I jumped on the treadmill for 20 minutes and then headed to Burger King for one last “fast food” junk food meal before the diet begins.
I started working on my next large outdoor project – leveling the area by the swing and laying gravel but I never got much done because the call of the swing won out. It was a perfect evening to just sit and swing for a while. I finished up by filling all the bird feeders and finally closing all the animals in for the night.
Finally got the garage cleaned!
Yesterday Bill and Shawn went to mow the grass at KBC apartments and I stayed home to get some work finished. One of the things on my “to do ” list was to clean the garage. This chore has been on the list for a few months but it was either too hot /cold or pouring down rain. I used any excuse I could to get out of doing this but sometimes you just have to buckle down and get the job done. The funny thing is that the garage really wasn’t that messed up – there were some things that needed to be put back where they belonged, and Shawn still has four boxes to sort though, and we have a few things marked for the trash that still need to be taken away. (Like a full size piano). The main thing was knocking down cobwebs and sweeping up spilled animal food and bedding. The hardest or should I say dirtiest job was washing out Golden Rod’s litter pans. Yes, he is spoiled and has two pans – one he uses to pee the other to poo. Whatever works – as long as I have a clean garage! I had this chore finished, the pathway/porches cleaned and the downstairs cleaned before the guys got home with my lunch. I even had the “crown of thorns” stone grouted which meant I got to cross two things off the list!
Golden Rod and I were setting on the patio watching the hummingbirds, goldfinches, doves, cardinals and flowers while enjoying a nice cold drink just before they pulled into the drive.
I spent the afternoon watching “Gun smoke” and “Bonanza” (which I have not gotten to do much this summer) before going out and work on the “eye” stone.
I think this is the 7th draft but it is starting to take shape. The choice is between the one above and the one below which doesn’t have the background in place. I may change the border yet — we’ll see.
This is the fun part but it also what takes up most of the time. I love that I can snap a photo and then start over to make another design and then compare them to decide which will be the final design.
Everyone fells asleep early so I want out and worked on the stone late last night.
I like this border much better.
Errands and Golf
We have been very busy the last two days and I have not gotten much done on the home front. Tuesday we were in town most of the day at KBC Apartments mowing grass and other things. We also ended up going to four stores looking for Japanese Beetle traps without any success. It seems someone had gone into each store and brought out their whole supply. One store said they had two coming in on Wednesday which we brought so now they are out again. Those beetles have been super bad this year and are trying to eat my green beans. I did manage to repair all the clothes and things that were in the “fix – me ” pile.
I am not sure why I agreed to get up at 6:30 on Wednesday to go play golf but I did and I had a very good time playing. I do not play much – in fact the last time I played was in September of last year – a group from church asked us to play and we decided it would be something different to do. The only problem was that I was the only woman to show up – so hopefully more wives will play next time. There were five of us and we had a nice relaxing morning with lots of laughter and pleasant conversation.
Ran a few errands and got some lunch before heading home to do some laundry and get it out on the line, make a few phone calls to straighten up some problems (UPS could not find our address so they emailed asking me to call them) and get Shoes outside for a while. Since it was too late in the day to work on any of the projects I decided to relax and read for a while.
DIY with Kathy! 