Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts

Monday, April 23, 2012

Hello Monday!

What a brilliant weekend we've had! After days of rain, the sun came out in all it's glory for a Summer like weekend. Of course we took full advantage.

There was a three cousin sleep-over at the little green cottage. A raucous mayhem ensued, followed by a wild rumpus!
There were grand sprinkler follies...

We got crafty with paper plate mask making...

There was dinner alfresco and fire roasted marshmallows and s'mores for dessert!


There was an evening movie in the living room theatre, then a lot of late night giggling, and two very tired adults come morning. Blueberry pancakes got the day started off nicely though.

Once the boys had gone, there was a bit of garden therapy for me and I spent the afternoon tucking little sprouts of veg into their beds.

Oh what a happy tired bunch and a brilliant weekend!

I would like to mention here that The Engineer is a super-hero! It was he who mowed the lawn and cleaned up the yard. It was he who planned the mask making, and the fire roasting. It was he who baked the mac & cheese from scratch, grilled the hot dogs and got up in the middle of the night with the littlest cousin (for this was his first sleep-over ever and it was all a bit disorienting to him). So 3 cheers to The Engineer, my hero!

Now what did you get up to this weekend?






Monday, April 6, 2009

Give Away Winner & Operation Chicken Coop


Thank you all for joining in the fun. The winner of little bear is Carrie from Whole Cloth Designs. I will be sending you an email today. For those of you who so sweetly worried about my girl missing out on the bear, do not fret, my girl's soft toy collection runneth over, a lot!
I am planning to have another give away soon so, stay tuned!

Now, in other news...
This weekend was glorious. The sun shined triumphantly and I soaked up as much vitamin D as I could to carry me through whatever weather lies ahead. We were abuzz with activity. Lettuce and Chard and potatoes oh my, all planted snug in their beds. The big buzz though,was the setting into motion of Operation Chicken Coop! Yes, it's official, we are on our way to becoming the neighborhood chicken folk. We can have up to three hens within the city limits. No roosters allowed (I am perfectly fine with that as I have had my share of rooster show downs ala spaghetti western style, but that is another story entirely).

Most of our time and labor was spent hacking away at the behemoth laurel hedge to make room for our feathered friends. On Saturday we had a couple of helpers and still only managed to take out a third of said behemoth.

Bessie was called into service to haul nearly 500 lbs of shrubbery to the city compost. That was less than half of the pile! The rest will be fed into a rented wood chipper dontcha know, next weekend.

Cutting away the hedge has revealed a few things. A much bedraggled Camellia bush/tree struggling for light, a much bigger back yard and an ugly cement wall belonging to the building behind our house. Eventually the rest of the hedge will be removed and my aesthetic sensibilities will need to be appeased in another project, but for now it just looks awful.


During this makeover it was discovered that my girl is indeed part monkey.

Here is the super handy Mr. Nova at work on the coop. See the little monkey in a tutu in the tree?

She took a little break from the climbing to do a bit of booty shakin' to Led Zepplin.

Looks as though it's becoming a right proper little house for our tiny flock. All that's left is walls, windows, nesting boxes, a caged run, a fenced run and...whew! And boy are my arms tired.

P.S. Thanks to all our helpers, Mr. Nova for being so handy and dandy, Mr. Sun for shining on us and to all of you for inspiring me.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Sprung!

I was inpired by Claire, who was inspired by Diane, to take some snaps of the signs of Spring.
So here is what I found in my own back yard.

Daphne: My husband thinks it smells like fruit loops.

Daffodils

Crocosmia

Camellia

Garlic and Shallots in the vegie garden.

Lambs Ears

Black Elderberry