Stop and smell the roses....

Well, these aren't roses, but they're pretty anyways. Here are some of the blooms in my yard tonight.

Zinnia


Gooseneck Loosetrife


Turkey Neck Loos--wait. That's a loose turkey!


Yellow Coneflower


White Guara


Pink Yarrow (I also have tons of white, but the pink is prettier)


Daylillies


Bee Balm (can you spot the powdery mildew? UGH)


Hydrangea


The flowers that I replanted from the old house are really taking off! I'm beginning to think I packed them in too tightly. Some of them might need to be moved, but that would require me making a new bed. I suppose I'll get to it someday.

I have to go. I made this for dinner tonight, and it just came out of the oven and I hear it calling my name! Have you read the Pioneer Woman blog? OMG, I think I am in love! I have been spending obscene amounts of time reading her posts. I'm hooked!

There ain't no bugs on me (hopefully).

We've been spending so much time outside lately and I'm completely eaten up by mosquitoes. I have bites everywhere. I hated the thought of spraying OFF or some other DEET product on my skin every day, so I looked for a natural recipe. I found that just about all of them called for an essential oil mixed with a carrier oil or alcohol. Using oil as a carrier just seemed too oily for me. I don't want oily skin in the hot, humid summer. I decided on using the recipe on this site. My coworker has a ton of essential oils, and she gave me a bottle of eucalyptus oil because she never uses it. Sweet! I already had witch hazel at home, so I used that as the carrier. I made a double batch, which was about 4-5 Tbsp of witch hazel and about 40 drops of the eucalyptus oil. That stuff is potent! I had an empty hair product spray bottle, so I put the mixture in there. I didn't get a chance to try it out today, but I will tomorrow! I hope it works!






We decided to name the puppy Elmer. Did I say that already? It took us forever to pick a name! Elmer fits him though. :-) He's growing like a weed! I swear he's grown a ton already.

Quick Update

Miss Frizzle has re-joined the flock! I gave her a dose of baby vitamins around 4:30 pm yesterday, and by 8:00 pm she was able to stand and walk a little. This morning I took her out of her little cage and she walked away like she was ready to go find the rest of her peeps. Her peeps. Get it? I crack me up!

Anyways, I'm so glad she's better and hopefully she won't relapse!

New puppy and other stuff.

Well, lots to blog about since the last post! We have a new addition to the family! He is a 13 week old Mastiff mix puppy from a dog rescue. So far he's fitting in nicely! He's very sweet, and loves to snuggle and be loved on. Last night he took a nap in my lap and snored the whole time! We think we're going to name him Elmer, but knowing us it could change. We're pretty indecisive.



Scooter isn't thrilled at having the new guy here, but Elmer loves Scooter! He keeps trying to give him kisses.



We also started a chicken coop! Dad and Lisa came to visit to help out with it. David's dad also helped out! We're pretty lucky to have dads that came to help us work on Father's Day! We got a lot done!

Here's the start of the floor:


Then we put up the front and back walls. The front wall is 8' tall. It seemed huge at first!


Then we put up the side walls.


Once the walls were up we started in on the roof!


Then came the sheathing for the walls.


We got the roof finished and most of the sheathing up, but we ran out of lumber. I ran back to Lowe's yesterday and got the rest of the lumber and the paint. I only got a gallon of paint for the walls (because you can't return special colors) and I didn't want to have too much extra. I need more though! I have one side left to paint. It's going to match the house. I got a gallon of white trim paint, but haven't started on that yet. We also got the rest of the sheathing put up yesterday, and cut out the hole for the door. Tonight hopefully we can finish up a few more things. We still need to make the door and hang it, cut out the door in the front for the chickens, and make their ramp. I'm pretty sure I'll need to paint the inside of the coop in case rain gets in the windows. We used OSB, which isn't meant for outside use, but it's way cheaper than plywood. As long as it's painted I think it'll be fine. As soon as it's functional, the chickens can go in. I can build their nesting boxes and roosts once they're living in it. I think it'll look nice all finished with flower boxes in the windows!

Speaking of chickens, Miss Frizzle is under the weather. She started acting funny the other day, but I didn't think much of it because she was still getting around ok. Sunday she wasn't walking well, and only wanted to sit/lay down. I have her separated so she can get food and water without getting trampled on. Last night her toes started curling. I've done some reading, and it sounds like curly-toe paralysis, which is caused by a riboflavin (vit. B2) deficiency. I got some baby vitamins today, so I'm going to give those to her tonight. I hope they work! I'd sure hate to lose her.

Tonight I hope to get the tomatoes staked. It's so hard doing so many things at once! :-)

Pre-Ceremony Pictures

Here are some pictures from before the ceremony. There are so many good ones it's hard to choose! I'm going to work on copying the CD of pictures and mailing it out to everyone so they can decide which pictures they want.


One of my most favorite!


This is one of my favorite moments of the whole day.





Aww.... I love you Mom.

We got the pictures!!

We got the wedding pictures!! I think what I'll do is just post a few a day for a while. Is that ok? I'm in love with all of them! We'll start out with the pictures while we were getting ready.






I wonder what in the world I was thinking about for this one!








I'll do more tomorrow!

Whew

I finally finished planting the garden today. I spent a few hours out there. There was an area that we hadn't planted yet and it got kinda weedy, so David tilled it last night. I planted three more rows of stuff in that spot. I also planted the other half of the corn section. Hopefully the corn will still have enough time to produce this year. I think it'll be okay. So here's the breakdown of what we have out there:

-4 long rows of corn
-1 row of yellow wax beans
-1 row of green stringbeans
-1 row of regular cucumbers
-1 row of pickling cucumbers
-1 row of green, yellow, and white squash
-1 row of 2 varieties of winter squash
-2 rows of assorted gourds (dipper, swan, loofah, little mini decorative, turban squash)
-4 pepper plants (bell, some variety I can't remember, and jalepeno)
-approx 25 tomatoes (Rutger, Celebrity, and Roma)
-1 row of swiss chard

I also got everything weeded. I was a little nervous about the layout of the garden this year...not having raised beds. I have to say I really like it! It makes using the stirrup hoe pretty easy. After using the stirrup hoe, I'd never want to garden without it! I also planted some flowers in the garden. There are sunflowers and cosmos in front of the corn, and I threw a bunch of different flower seeds in small patch of empty garden near the tomatoes. I'll probably plant some marigolds and some other flowers in a day or two. I tend to get a little bored with planting sometimes....I can only handle so much at time. :-) Now hopefully we'll get some hot weather. It's been fairly cold and rainy this garden season so far. Everything is slow growing!






Maters



Stringbeans



Corn!



I found my next project. The flowerbed has been neglected and wire grass is taking over! Wire grass is the worst weed. It's hard to pull out and it seems you can never get it all out because those sneaky little rhizomes. Ugh. See all the little sunflowers in the front there? They were an accident. One of the birdfeeders spilled in the back of the truck when I was moving them. I swept out the mulch that was in there and ended up planing all of the spilled seeds. Oops! I like them though. Should be pretty when they bloom (which should be soon!).


Totally random- I've had this song stuck in my head for a while! I didn't used to like Taylor Swift, but I do now. The song reminds me of being in high school, and I think the video is cute. :-) And this song of hers makes me cry. :-) It's really sweet. Sometimes I wish I was 5 again. *sigh*

A taste of free-ranging!

It's hard to get pictures of the chickens when they're in their pen because it's so shady in there. I opened their fence and had to shoo them out into the yard because they were a little nervous.







Cogburn is keeping an eye on me while he eats the plants.


See the little black pullet? That's Eula. I like how she's still in this picture but the others are moving all around. :-)



Miss Frizzle is finally all feathered out. Her head is um, interesting. It's kinda on the ugly side of interesting. She's just too funny though. She's one of the smaller chicks, and she's so goofy. Her little feet go flying when she tries to keep up with the flock.



Mr. Frizzle is finally looking decent.



The turkeys wouldn't stay still for pictures! They loved going into the bushes, so it was hard to see them. They're really getting big!



Scooter is helping round them all up. Luckily he's good at listening to the "wait" command. He loves helping out and take the job seriously!


We did some work in the garden tonight, so I'll try to post pictures tomorrow. :-)

Missing Chicky?

I went out tonight at dusk to close the chickens in the garage. I did a head count to make sure everyone was there. I was missing two! Miss Frizzle and one of the big girls. Uh oh. I went outside and double checked their run. Not there. Then I walked all around the garage. No chickens. I went back inside to take a better look, because they roost on all sorts of things, so I could have missed one.

Not on the bucket...


Not on the pen..


Found one!! Miss Frizzle is snuggled in the box.


Let me take one more look around...wait. What's that up in the rafter?


There you are! Silly chicken. Everyone is safe for the night.

Preview!

Nicole sent a preview of the wedding photos. I love all of these, and I can't wait to see the rest! So far it looks like she really outdid herself!

And this last one.....so sweet.