Our Neighbors to the North / Niagara Falls

Well, its been a little while since I have updated my blog, partly because I have been doing some traveling and partly because life has just been a bit hectic lately. Here are a few picks from a recent trip to Niagara Falls and Toronto..I'm hoping to get back into the backyard soon and post a couple of updates

Just in case you were thinking about it

Careful crossing the street

The kids garden....and just like dad's...it's a work in progress

The kids were very excited to pick out their own plants for "their garden" and decided to save room in the middle...for what I have know idea, but I'm sure we'll figure something out

Soaker Hose Madness

I've been wanting to install a soaker hose for years, finally I did. I'm hoping to see three big differences with this hose, less water usage, fewer weeds, and fewer disease problems since less water will be splashing soil up on the plant leaves to spread disease. I thought I only needed about 150ft to get the job done, after some searching I found the best deal to be a 250ft roll online and I used it all so my advise is to buy more than you think you'll need. I also had to purchase a couple of fittings to add onto the hose, which wasn't a big deal. Instead of purchasing pins to hold the hose in place I decided to cut up some extra clothes hangers which worked out well

Clinging to life...Zebra grass emergency

This is what happens when a plant is moved to the wrong location. It used to be a happy healthy clump of Zebra grass (that I got for Father's Day) until I moved it to a spot I "thought" received plenty of light. Turns out the spot I moved it to did receive plenty of light during fall and early spring, but once the leaves came in it was almost all shade. Well...I finally moved it to a nice sunny spot, their is just a bit, minute, tiny piece of green left in it so lets just hope it is enough to resuscitate my once happy healthy Zebra!

Here's a gardening tip....if you move further away it doesn't look as bad!



Coop Update

Spent some time updating the coop over the weekend, so far I am happy with the way it has been coming out. The grass has been growing slow, but it's growing. For my shady spot, I planted boxwoods, a rhododendron, and a couple of astilbes

Because I didn't know my land

Last year I put my compost bin together and thought I had chosen a great spot

Then the pampas grass started to take over

So...this year the bin came back out

I decided it would be easier to pull out the bin, then try to pull out all of these little guys...now I just have to find another "great spot"

Florida Part 3 / Clearwater

We took a drive up to Clearwater while we were there, visited Winter (the dolphin from the dolphin tale movie) and hit the beach

When we were leaving this little guy decided to hitch hike on our windshield



Florida Part 2 / Around the resort

The hotel was located on a lake with a fishing pier. When I first saw this sign I thought it was a joke until I spotted this guy hanging out just a few feet from the pier

Florida Part 1 / Sea World

Just came back from a good ole family vacation. We took the kids to Disney, Sea World and Clearwater Florida and it was beautiful. Below is the first set of pictures from our trip


Some sights from Sea World

Coop/Kennel Update - Help me pick out the best plants/shrubs for this spot

An update on the coop, grass is starting to come in, I still need to figure out what type of shrubs to plant in the beds and around the kennel. Once the trees catch up and the leaves come out this spot will be full shade. I'm really not familiar with full shade plants/shrubs that will grow in my zone 6 yard. I want to get ones that wont grow very big around the coop so if you have any ideas please speak up!

An odd dry spring

So far this spring has followed the same path as winter, it has not been what I expected at all. We had summer temperatures for a while, then it cooled off, but with no snow to melt and minimal rain we are well below normal water levels and wild fires have been cropping up all over the state. Tomorrow we are expected to get some much needed rain! Despite the conditions, nature perssissts and has managed a few blooms in the yard.