Spring in the Gazebo!

Grab a cup of coffee or ice tea, if you please and pull up a chair - It's time for the spring gazebo tour! You know we are all about the rust and repurposing vintage items. If you are new here, our gazebo was literally pulled from a trash ditch a few years back and we have had fun with the makeover project and decorating it each season. The first spring we had the gazebo, I decided that I would no longer have visible plastic or store bought containers in my yard, so everything is rescued and given a new purpose!

We have lots of galvanized goodness in our yard! 

You can catch the video and my tips and tricks for planting in vintage washtubs here.

As I said, we rescue and repurpose buckets, even if they don't have a bottom. This bucket has a rusted out bottom, but I still turn it into a hanging basket! (You can find the original post on planting in bottomless buckets here.) 

I had this piece of grapevine laying around after we changed our booth up last month, so I decided to drape it over the doorway and I like how it looks. If it's laying around, its apt to find a place decorating the gazebo. 

When we first planted the 3 bushes around the gazebo, they were small and the bicycle really stood out. Now it's hiding in the bushes! I have lights on the bike and at night you can see the outline better. A gym locker basket has been wired to the handles of the bike and holds an assortment of clay pots. 

In the back of the gazebo, a metal pig feeder is a pedestal for a vintage chicken feeder with flowers. 

It's pretty and it's pink! I fell in love with this ceramic dish at the thrift store and immediately knew succulents belonged in it. 

 A fern sits in an old crock.

 Sweet potato vines and dianthus are nestled in this old water cooler.

 Evenings in the springtime are my favorite and the light is almost magical!

The birdcage with herbs and the itty, bittiest little fern you ever saw hangs on the left side of the entrance. I use trampoline springs to adjust the height of the planters. We were cleaning out an old barn one time and came home with a wooden tool box of oddities - included was the trampoline springs. (I shared my birdcage planting video here.)

 Fresh herbs from the yard are the best!

Some have commented in the past about why was the door in the back of the gazebo? Well, it has a few purposes. 

1. Block the view of the storage building behind it. 

2. The door serves as a backdrop for me to photograph items like wreaths and shirts for my shop. 

 3. I get to hang funky, junky wreaths or hang plants on the door. 

I was digging through some of my junk the other day and decided to make a new wreath. I found a grapevine wreath in the greenhouse, then tied on a license plate, made a star with a folding ruler, a very rusty handle from a shovel, a chicken feeder, and a piece from a roll of barbed wire. 

To me, the four loops from the barbed wire spool looked like a flower outline. The chicken waterer thingamajig  (a mason jar can screw into it) formed the center of the flower.  

 That little blue piece was a tag on the barbed wire spool and added just a touch of color to the wreath. A scrap of burlap ribbon made a bow, along with raffia and jute twine used to tie everything to the wreath. 

You might be wondering about the rectangle frame - Angea ask me about it recently and wondered where I found it. Well, way back when I first started gardening, we had a wheelbarrow planted with flowers. Over several years time, it finally rusted out and broke apart. The frame above is actually the old rim of the broken down wheelbarrow! I hung the wreath and frame together on the door with a wreath hanger. Now see, that's a good reason to have a door there, right?!?

The undercarriage of the wheelbarrow found a home in a flower bed, protecting a few plants from the dogs making a home on top of them. Nothing goes to waste! 

So there you have it! Hope you enjoyed the tour. 

As I stated in one of the videos, the gazebo and plantings are ever changing and evolving, so stay tuned to see how things progress through the seasons. 

Christmas in the Gazebo

I always love decorating the gazebo for Christmas! 

Christmas decorating usually comes around the time of first frost here, so it's time to clean up the yard and give it a more lively look. New lights always help! We leave the lights up all year round and it's been dark the last few weeks, therefore it was time. After Christmas I call the "fairy lights" or "party lights"! 😉

We prefer our Dish Pan Snowman, since it won't melt and it doesn't have to be freezing cold and yucky to have a snowman! Win-win, right?!? 

Cleaning up the yard, there where a few watering cans that needed to be put away for winter, but I decided to hang them on the tree instead! 

I added a few burlap poinsettias, twigs, and a red check bow and the tallest tree was decorated! I'm all about keeping it pretty simple this year  - we are on a cleaning spree and these items were all laying around in my workroom, so on the tree they went. 

The old crock and water cooler became tree stands! The rest of the trees are just prelit trees I've picked up at thrift stores over the past few years. I took the plastic stands off and they set down in the old containers. 

The bicycle basket (actually a gym locker basket) needed something. Usually I add fresh greenery or a plant, but I've been sick and just haven't gone to the woods to trim trees... Now back to the cleaning and decluttering my workroom - one garland sitting in the floor, a sign, and a scrap piece of ribbon made their way to the basket! 

There you have it, simple Christmas decor in the yard and gazebo, using items found and repurposed. If you're new around here and haven't read the story of our gazebo, you should go back and see some of the old post - the gazebo was really and truly rescued from a trash ditch and we've had fun giving it a makeover the last few years. The only thing that is ever purchased new is the lights. 

Making Herb Butter

 I love herbs - both growing and cooking with them. After attending a recent Medicinal Herb class, I'm exploring using herbs as tonics and for cleaning, so I've been adding a few more plants to my yard that can be beneficial to us.

 I've had this bird cage hanging in a tree and decided to add small pots of oregano and some aloe in it. As the plants get larger, I'll transplant to bigger containers or somewhere in the ground.

One of my favorite ways to use herbs is "Herb Butter."

It's so easy to make and there's no exact recipe.

I let two sticks of (real) butter soften at room temperature, so that you can stir in the herbs. For this batch, I added chopped chives, oregano, basil, salt, and garlic powder. Stir it in good and then refrigerate to let it get firm again. That's all! 

Use whatever herbs you like and to your taste. Now that I think about it, at times I've even added dried cayenne pepper to the butter.  

Grilled corn on cob is so good with herb butter. At Memorial Day, we bought 10 ears of corn and grilled them. Everyone was going crazy over the corn. Later that night, I found out Jeff didn't get any corn. We had 11 in attendance and everyone ate the corn . Ooops! So for 4th of July, I made sure there was plenty of corn for everyone and that he got a piece.

 For grilled corn, I remove the silks, but leave on the husk. Soak corn for 30 minutes in water, liberally apply butter to ears of corn, pull the husk back up over the corn, wrap in tin foil and grill 20-30 minutes. It holds it heat really well, so its the first thing to go on the grill and it'll still be warm after grilling the meat. Remove foil just prior to setting on the table and then watch it disappear! Oh and pass the herb butter around the table!

We also used a pat of butter on the steaks, right before they came off the grill and it's good on bread as well.

Do you cook with herbs? If so, what's your favorites? 

Baby Cardinals

Last Monday, I discovered a nest of baby cardinals in the bushes right beside the gazebo. In fact, as I watered plants, I could look over the gazebo rail and see them. You may remember my Cardinals and Grandmama story from the winter. All year, I've been working on a "For The Birds" theme and found something bird related on every junkin' trip leading up to our show last weekend. Sunday when I came home from the show, there was a different bird sitting on the gazebo rail as he was learning how to fly. Then on Monday, I found this nest. When the cardinals flew out of the bushes, I was able to identify what these ugly little things were! Today, one week after finding the nest, Jeff alerts me that my babies are leaving the nest. I was really surprised it was so soon, but according to my search, they are only in the nest 9-11 days before flying away. They have chirped all day as they cling to tree branches and get brave enough to flutter through the yard. The daddy cardinal has been coaxing them along a lot and give me a few ugly looks as I observed them. Hope you enjoy the pictures of the cardinals!

Monday - the day I discovered the babies.

Monday - wee little babies.

Friday afternoon - yikes!

Saturday evening - big difference in a day! 

Sunday evening - that nest is getting crowded.

Monday morning - Baby number 1 made his way to the Bridal Wreath in the yard. 

Monday morning - bird #2 left the nest

Monday morning baby 3

"What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?" - e.h.

 I finally got a picture of the red bird, although he wasn't too happy with me! (I've tried off and on since December to get his picture.)

 He would coax and call to the babies and bringing them food. I can't tell exactly what he has in his mouth. I left them alone and went back inside to work, expecting that they would be gone this afternoon.

Late this evening, I went outside to photograph some wedding bouquets I had finished today and heard lots of little chirping going on. They were still here! Bird 1 was sitting in the crepe myrtle in the center of the yard, eye height, and I was able to get lots of pictures of him. I could have reached out and grabbed him up easily, instead, I just took lots more pictures and a video of him. 

 I mean, they are so ugly they're cute!

 Those toes, that fuzz! I shot some of these in macro, about a foot away from him!

 Birdy #2 was in another bush in the yard, but I never found the last one. I think he was in the trees beyond the yard fence.

 I'm glad my yard can be a place for the birds to live. I don't buy feed for them, but our yard and surroundings provide for them and I sure like getting to witness their journey as they find their wings and fly away (or maybe they will all stay here!)

Now, I'm an empty nester...