House and Garden Day

Normally this would be Walkabout Friday, but I decided instead to stay home and tend to household matters. Here's a list of what I did today.

- Got breakfast at Sbux and took Hubby to work

- Drove home, ate breakfast, watched a few minutes of Desperately Seeking Susan

- Folded blankets, put them in the couch cubby; found two throw pillows I've been meaning to give to Goodwill; they were filthy so I put them in the tub to soak

- Snuggled babies. Miss C has a fever 

- Put together my new wind spinner, a Mother's Day gift from M and the babies

- Installed the wind spinner outside B's window

- Watered the shrubs and trees in front with M and the babies; vinegared a few sidewalk weeds

- Spoke to our favorite neighbor, Bill, who lives across the street

- Cleaned up garbage and moved just about everything from the south side yard to the backyard. Used my recently-fixed wheelbarrow to move some heavy stuff. Decided to name it Cisco after Kevin Costner's horse

- Rested. Whew.

- Blogged. Heyyyyy 

- Did some pruning...

- Some watering...

- Some nice loud cleaning of the very dirty hammock

- Sat outside in the shade with this guy

....all while either making lots of noise or eavesdropping on the neighbors 😁

(cuz I'm 12)

Sitting out here, I realized what a sweet little shady spot is right here under the apple tree. Maybe we need to lay down some outdoor tiles and create a living space 

- Ate lunch late, unbagged my latest Goodwill yarn bundle, turned on The Truman Show

- Picked up Hubby from work; rested

- More pruning

- Installed my Mother's Day gift from B, this cute hanging birdbath

- Listened to Hubby mow the front lawn

Feeling a lot better about things tonight. Work and productivity always help me. Remind me of that next time, won't you?

Weeding the Mailbox: Before and After

It's been very rainy and stormy here, which kept me from doing much outside, but today I made a little progress. Click on the pictures for more detail.

Here we are, out by the mailbox... quite weedy. The border between our yard and the neighbor's is denoted by the crack in the curb and the bark dust. Sorry about the blur - my camera lens was dirty, I later discovered. This was taken on May 4, so after ten days and a lot of rain, you can imagine how covered over this spot was.

After spending a couple of hours weeding and pruning, we can see some dirt! Hooray for dirt!

While we were outside working, the middle school's marching band came marching down our street, practicing for an upcoming parade in our area. The kids looked embarrassed to have us watch, but Rosalind and I enjoyed it.

This black spot fungus stuff is worrying me. All the rose bushes are affected. I spent some good time pruning the two older bushes, and there's still plenty of vegetation left, but the younger ones are just covered with the stuff. I don't know if they'll make it. From what I've read, all you can do to this fungus is prune it.

This guy has been hanging around our house since Monday. We think he must live close by, because he never seems hungry - just wants to play, climb our trees and hang around on the patio. The bluebird couple who live in our backyard love to taunt him by coming within three feet of him, then jumping away when it looks like he's going to pounce. Quite entertaining.


This is the view from our front window - gorgeous trees in our neighbors' yard.

We feel very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place.

Speaking of Lilacs...

Click on the pictures for more detail.


The lilac shrub is quite mature and doing very well, especially on the sunny side. It's about three feet away from a red-leafed tree, I think an elm, which shades its right side to the point that hardly anything bloomed. Like most of the other trees and plants on our property, it needs some TLC.


The sunny side - look how long those branches are. We need a haircut.


The one bloom on the "tree" side.


I love the color.

What I Found: How to Prune Lilac Shrubs - though my lilac shrub definitely needs it, I can't do any pruning until after the shrub is finished blooming, or I won't have any blooms next year. I'll be posting some "after" pictures later.

ALSO: I swept the patio and front walk. Doesn't sound like such a huge job, but with the wind blowing so much lately, we've had all kinds of interesting little tree- and flower-related paraphenalia blow onto the property, along with lots of dirt and dust. (sneezing heavily)