It's almost Christmas....time to pick a pepper

Doesn't everyone pick peppers as part of their Holiday tradition...well, maybe not, but I am. Peppers have never done well in my garden so last year most of them found themselves in pots on my deck. I decided to overwinter a few of them in a sunny room, production has definitely slowed down, but the peppers are still their and this one looks just about ready to pick so a Christmas pepper will be on the menu this year!

To molt or not to molt that is the question

The last few months seemed to be difficult ones for one of our hens, she was losing feathers, lots of them, everyday. At first we weren't sure what was going on, the other two looked fine, we didn't know if she was sick or being bullied by the other two, but something was definitely going on. After some research we realized molting was the answer. Although it's a natural process it just didn't seem it....but our girl got through it and looks great now. She even started laying again, even though the eggs are tiny she seems to be back to her old self again!

The Center of the Universe

It's been a while since I have updated the blog and a lot has happened. Since my last update, I took a trip out to the Midwest to visit my in laws and my father in law generously gave me a classic convertible, which has been sitting in his garage since my wife was a kid. It does need quite a bit of work and wasn't running so I rented a truck and trailer and towed it to the east coast, it was a beautiful ride. Since being back I have had some time to get out into the yard, but mostly just cleaning up for winter, most of my spare time has been spent working on the car to wake her up from her 32 year nap!

I was able to take a few pictures along my road trip, but unfortunately most did not come out very good, but I will look through them to see if any are worth posting. I hope everyone is doing well and also hope everyone has a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Mid West or Massachusetts

Spent some time at a local farm this morning picking apples. The trees were bursting with ripe fruit and as I looked across the farm I couldn't help but think of the mid west and how beautiful that area is. The farm also added a new addition this year, which was great to see, a coop with a flock of about a dozen hens

A busy Holiday weekend in the yard

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, I know I did. I was able to take an extra few days off and spend some time with the family as well as make some great progress on my backyard project

 

a random surprise, I didn't plant this here, beside my walkway, but somehow a corn stock grew and is producing a couple of cobs of corn, considering I don't have corn growing anywhere on my property, I found this to be quite the surprise

The yard of my dreams a work in progress

So I have been making some progress on the yard work, hoping to get a lot done over the long holiday weekend

The Yard of my Dreams

So here it is, the yard of my dreams. Can you believe I have never had any artistic training, oh yes, it's true. But seriously, bad art work aside, this is what I am thinking about doing to my yard. The tan lines would be stone, the black circle is a fire pit, the tree is, well, a tree, and the green stripes are some zebra grass.The patio will all be filled in with the pavers you see and I will fill the spaces in with stone...This is just a "rough draft" I could still change...especially if anyone wants to chime in with some great ideas!

Its always nice when you can recycle

After fixing up my deck I had a pile of old decking...I also had a small shed that I use to keep the kids bulky toys in sitting on the ground. I bought just a few pressure treated 2X4's to make the frame and then covered it all with the old decking. The shed now sits level, off the ground, and the doors don't stick anymore, which I great. I was also able to reduce what was a pretty good sized pile of old decking down to a much smaller pile!

It's been a while

Well, it's been a while since I updated the blog or since I've been able to get out into the backyard. Work has been hectic so it's been taking a toll on my weekends, but I'm hoping things will quiet down soon, at least for a little while!

So what's been going on....My zebra grass has bounced back from it's near death experience so I am definitely happy about that.  We have had a considerable amount of heat and not much rain this year so the lawn is pretty much all dead, the lawn, if you did not know, is my nemesis! I have been battling it for years and every year the lawn wins....At this point I am pretty close to throwing in the towel, I just can't stand the thought of running my well everyday just to water the grass, it just seems like such a waste. I've been trying to think of creative ways to get rid of as much of it as possible, but so far I haven't thought of anything good so I'll just keep trying.

Other quick tidbits
1-The kids garden keeps going and going despite neglect
2-I like the soaker hose I put into the vegetable garden, but the raised beds made it very tough to weed
3-And ground bees have taken over my weed patch, I mean my lawn. The bees are everywhere, and have been trying to get rid of them in an attempt to stay environmentally friendly we were going out nightly and pouring boiling hot water down their holes...days of that got rid of some of them, but not all. Last night we caved in and pour liquid ammonia down the holes so we'll have to see what results that brings

Deck Update

So the deck part of this project is all done and it wasn't too bad of a project. I pulled all of the railings off and only replaced them on the left hand side. Then I created a step down around the front and right. You'll see some pavers laying around that area which leads me to my next project. I will be removing the grass and the deck will eventually step down onto a patio, but I'm going to wait until the weather cools off a little before I get going on that one! That much digging, and in the heat, is just no fun so it can wait until we get closer to the fall weather and the cooler temps that come with it.

Blooms around the garden

I never thought I would see a gang in my backyard

I was just minding my own business, making some breakfast when I spotted them...their was a GANG in my backyard!!!  OK, OK, so it was a gang of turkeys...I was still surprised

Hope my hens don't get into a gang fight!

I've heard of the Tortoise and the Hare, but never the Turkey and the Hare...I wonder who will win this race

Happy 4th

Hope everyone is enjoying their Holiday, we watched our fireworks last night and spent the day working on the deck. I am definitely making some great progress.

My potted plants are scattered across the ground. Last year I overwintered one of my pepper plants (in the purple pot) as an experiment. If you look closely you will see some bright red peppers, and I have already picked a few this year. So this winter I will definitely take a few more inside

Below, just an update on the kids garden, it's a bit on the wild side, but they are getting some nice blooms

A Little Summer Project

OK, so I'm not sure how I got into this one, but some how these things just happen! It only took one weekend to pull this apart....now lets see how long it takes to go back together!

The girls

The weed dragon kills weeds and drove out something???

Hello and happy Fathers Day, so my family got me a weed dragon type of device for Fathers Day, which is great. If your not familiar with the weed dragon, it is basically a long blow torch that attaches to a propane tank and you can use it to roast weeds, which will hopefully kill them off and avoid all of the hand pulling. Well, I got one today and immediately grabbed the propane tank from my BBQ and went to work roasting all of the weeds along my walkway. You definitely need to be careful while using it as it throws off a lot of heat and the flame can get large, but it was very fun to use and really did cook my weeds. Now I'm just hoping they don't come back. I will hoverer still need to pull by hand in the mulched beds because I didn't want to take a chance in catching my house on fire!

After I finished my walkways I decided to take it out to my garden, I roasted everything in the patio area and then walked up and down the pathways roasting the weeds growing on the sides of my raised beds being careful not to get to close to my plants or the soaker hose. Everything I wanted to get rid of cooked up nicely and my wife and I were soon enjoying a cold drink and toasting our success. Then something funny happened, we noticed swarms of fat worms coming out of the sides of the beds, they kind of looked like grubs, except no little feet or mouths, they were closer in appearance to short fat worms....I'm guessing the heat must of drove them out of the soil, but now I'm not sure if these little guys are good or bad....Part of me wants to run to the store and just find something lethal to get rid of them, but another part of me wants to keep things natural and let the beneficial bugs get rid of them, and oh yeah, their is a third part of me still trying to figure out if these things are good for my garden or bad! For now, I had the entire family (wife and kids), picking these guys up with their trowels (we had hundred of them). I collected them all into a bucket and my three chickens had the best buffet of their lives....now I just need to figure out the next steps....any advise is appreciated

Thanks!!!

What's in bloom

Couple of shots from around the yard...

This little clump of Zebra grass was almost completely gone a few weeks ago, then I dug it up and moved it to a sunny spot..so far so good