Mother's Day

 Vigilant Mrs Robin watching her babies and our back door.










So you can see how close the nest is to the deck. The metal pipe is the frame for the canvas awning.. She is sitting of the frame in the top picture.

Two weeks ago before the babies hatched two magpies came to near to the nest. She screamed and about three other robins came swooping in and attached the magpies. We do not have magpies in our back yard any more.

Three babies waiting for food. In a week or two they will be nosy. For now I just hear small peeps.

 She does not like me to take her picture are be near to her babies. One baby is straining out from beneath her with its mouth open. Mrs Robin has a worm in her beak and baby wants some. She is distracted by my camera. So I went back in the house and closed the door.

 

 It is hard to see her but Mrs Robin is sitting on the fence at the back of our yard. She is watching out siding glass door and the movement in the house.

  This has been really fun watching her build the nest, then waiting for the eggs to hatch, now watching her care for the babies.

Until next time,

Marcia

Last week my grandsons came over and did the yard work.

The boys need lots and lots of money for high school football. So I did my part and had lots of yard work for them to do.

I wished I had gotten my camera out while the other two boys were doing their part.  Dolten is a little bit slower only when he is doing chores. That might be because he is bigger and it takes more to get him going.




 It took him longer to get down here. They live just a 1/2 mile east. So they are really close.




BJ had to show him how to use the sprayer. Being the bright kid that he is he could have figured that spray bottle out all by himself. He reads instructions quite well without pictures. Then he had to find a mask so that he did not inhale the fumes.

Those two could stand out in the yard and talk forever. 
So when those two do something together it takes three times as long.

Maybe it is just because he is sixteen and BJ is Sixty-one. So there is a big gap that they must fill in with lots of taking.

I will get pictures of the other boys next week. Maybe.

Until I write next,
Marcia

Fair Weather Blogger

I have learned that I am a fair weather blogger. So it has been a long time since I have written anything. Apparently there is nothing to write if the sun is not shinning. Well the sun is still not shinning and I do have something to write about.

 

After 13 plus years living in this house. We have a bird that has built a nest in the rafters between the deck and the garage. I did not take this picture I got it from Google images. I tried to get a picture of the robin in his nest, or hers I guess. He flew off before I could get the picture. Then it was way to dark. Lots of shadows under that rafter. Actually it is raining now, however it is suppose to brighten this afternoon. I will wait and see.

So that's all for now.

Marcia

Our house got egged last night. That was not fun. What a mess. We were not targeted, it was random. BJ tried to power wash it off, however he will have to go up and scrub.


Last week I went with my daughter and her two sons to her doctor appointment in Salt Lake City. Then we went out to lunch at the new City Creek with my other two daughters. It was a fun afternoon. The new City Creek is beautiful and a lot larger then I thought it would be. Two of my daughters worked for the construction company that built City Creek. They were both at the opening ceremonies.

This is really a good link to see what City Creek is all about:

http://www.shopcitycreekcenter.com/cccnews

Home made Insectecide

I went out and sprayed all my plants, my flowers, vegetable beds and fruit trees. I used water with a little Ivory soap. This is a mix I have used for a long time. when I was younger with my first experience in gardening, my mother told me to throw out my dish water on my vegetable plants.

My mother always had the most beautiful roses. She told me that was because the soap in the water from the dish washing water killed the aphids. My mother was right 


4 cups of water 
2 Tablespoons of liquid Ivory dish soap

I am not sure if other dish soaps work, however Ivory is not harmful to the plant and works well to keep insects from destroying the plants. 


This all purpose pesticide disrupts the cell membranes of the insects and kills them by dehydration.

So how does my garden grow????

It has been a month since I last posted about the garden. Its growing. I do not have any fatalities to report. However there have been some surprises.


The first surprise about a week into the new water system and the hose blows. Reality easy fix, just replace the hose with what should be a more sturdy hose.




Second surprise:    About June 6th the new hose spit. We had another gusher!!

We will try another solution BJ will put in a PVC pipe to the automatic system.


That should hold us for the rest to the summer.

My vegetable beds look good.

 The East Bed

The Maddi Bed

 The West bed.         












Lots of growth. Including for Maddi. Maddi liked the crackers.

My Birthday Present

BJ, my husband, set up the sprinkler and drip system last night. I was so excited. I set the timer on the two zones. Zone 1 is down stairs from the deck in the vegetable beds. Zone 2 is on the deck for the hanging baskets and the herb pots. I was so excited!! Now we would be able to go on our weekend trips through out the summer and come home to plant that were still alive and doing well (hopefully).

In my hurry to post my project to my blog, I forgot two important pictures. The top is where we have been storing the pallets for the last16 years that I have been around. The next is a picture of the Raised Garden Kit from Ace Hardware before it was assembled.

Now the pallet pile is much smaller. BJ originally picked up to burn in the winter for the downstairs stove. He never cut them up so we could burn them.

Now the sprinkler and drip system:

 Research was easy with the internet. I decided on an Orbit because I had the options I wanted. I only needed a two zone. But I wanted to be able to control several watering times throughout the day.

  From the yard looking up to the deck.

 That is BJ working his way down from the deck to Zone 1 on the ground.

 Zone 1 has a sprinkler in each corner of the bed which waters 1/4th of the bed. So we have four sprinklers.

WE have a bed on each side of the stairs for my easy 


access for future weeding and harvesting.



                                                      

 Up on the deck is zone 2 with two areas. this area is set up for the herbs and I have my cherry tomatoes. I am keeping those separate from the Early Girly tomatoes so they hopefully well not cross pollinate.

 The water goes into the manifold that then dispenses the water to the individual pots.

There is a manifold at a corner on each of the beds for distribution of water.

The drip system on the deck (zone 2).

you can see the hose coming down from the main hose system to this hanging geranium.
Did I say I was so excited?

Raised bed garden. May 2012

April 12th I went to Lowes and looked at all the vegetable and fruit seeds. I really had spring fever BAD, bad, bad. I wanted to start a garden, however there were no plants only seeds. 

We had been having an early warmer than normal spring and was many parts of these united states. Since it was really early I decided to start the seeds myself. Half the time I do this it is a waste of money. The starters get mold or root rot. So I got the whole starter stuff and came home to plant my seeds.

 Each day I made sure there was water in each of the trays.

I put them all out each day to get some natural light.

 Each night I would bring them in and set them on the kitchen cupboard.


We were having warm days and most nights were warmer than normal and did not freeze.

I did not want to take the chance of freezing, just in case the weather man/woman was inaccurate I brought these little plants into the house.

I used photo paper to mark what was planted where. 


As I would never, never do to any of my daughters, I hovered over these little plants day and night. That is the helicopter approach to gardening. That my work on seedlings, however do not try this on children.


On the photo paper I wrote the plant date and the plant name. I cut these out in strips and folded them and placed them in the dirt.

I continued my vigil until about May 12th. My grandsons came over and helped build elevated plant beds. They actually did the whole thing. 

I wanted the bed to be near the deck and elevated so I could easily care for the plants and harvest the bounty!!

 We bought the  beds at Ace hardware. They were pretty inexpensive.


We had a bunch of pallets just sitting in the yard so we had the boys pile three and then put the yard fabric on top then the plant bed.

 The boys then filled each bed (two only) with good soil.

 My helicopter approach to the seeds worked. I hovered enough and it looks like I will have a good crop.







So now I need to put the plants into the the beds.
I am so excited I will have fresh vegetables.

They look pretty good and hearty.

Madison Jane's belated birthday present.

 My new sewing machine is a Brothers. It is light weight with all the stitches I will need. For my first project I made my youngest granddaughter a stuffed animal.

I finally got down to my daughter's house in Salt Lake City to take my granddaughter her birthday present. I used a teddy bear pattern I have had for about 35 years. It was easy and cute.

 I loved magazines with simple projects. 

This project was in the Oct. 1980 Woman's Day.I cut the projects out of the magazines that I hoped I would some day complete. I usually copied the pattern or enlarged it as in this case. Then I would make an envelop with the instruction on the outside and pattern pieces on the inside.

 I used heavy pellon to put the pattern on. These pattern pieces have lasted a long time. This envelop also had a pattern for a horse and a dog.

My mistake was trying to update it to an alien teddy bear. My daughter thought it was a raccoon. I didn't tell her what it was. My granddaughter was not to impressed.

                                                     The birthday girl.

 

 My little dog, Maddi was hoping that the alien bear would be hers. 
So now I need to make her one.

I had fun being with my grand children and my daughter.







Allyson was piling all kinds of things into the bag I brought down with the presents in.

Roman loves to pose for pictures. So he hams it up. Its a good thing that he is a cute ham.

After a while Madison Jane needed a bag also. She is unsteady on her feet so the bag that she had was over powering her.