Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Lily Time

Its Day Lily time in my yard!
 A few years ago, my great aunt took me over to her friends house and I came home with a truck load of free plants! It doesn't get any better than that for this frugal gardener! Among the many plants I brought home that day were a multitude of day lilies. Mrs. Friday had been growing them for over twenty years and had crossed them and bred the lilies to create her own colors. There were no plain jane, ordinary orange lilies in her yard - no mam, there were yellows, pinks, reds, ring eyes, petals of alternating color, triple bloom lilies. It was like a mail order catalog with all of the beautiful colors she had. You name it - she had it and the best part, she shared them with me!
Each year I get to enjoy the beautiful lilies she raised and shared with me. They are definitely a highlight of my yard each spring and summer. These are a few of the lilies that were blooming in my yard last night.

My garden has been looking good during the month of May, but this week it is begging for water. All of a sudden things went from lush looking to needy. The thermometer is reading 101.7 degrees as I type and there is no rain in the forecast. Looks like the water hose will be getting a lot of use in the coming days. Speaking of water hoses - I recently bought a new one to replace the constantly kinked up and leaking water hose that I drug around each afternoon. I splurged on the one that claimed it would not kink and I'm happy to say, it hasn't kinked yet!

Well, I'm off to take Farmall Man for his follow up appointment with the orthopedic doctor. We are hoping for a good report today.

Hope you are enjoying your day! How hot is it were you are at today?

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Shoppin'

So Farmall Man has completed several cleanup jobs where he has either cleaned abandoned property or torn down unwanted buildings and houses. Through these adventures he has came across quite a collection of junk stuff.

I've been a benefactor of these endeavors over the past 9 years. I have built several brick patios from bricks I've loaded while FM has torn down a building, have several wheelbarrows, wagons, and unique planters that came from trash ditches, and my gazebo and bicycle planter was rescued from the land of  unwanted.
Its so true about "one man's trash, is another man's treasure". I have re purposed lots of items that are trash to others.

Like I said, FM has quite the collection of junk stuff out back (behind the house - the front belongs to me!) From old cars and chicken feeders to cash registers, farm implements, lumber and recycled tin; there is lots to be found out back. Occasionally I get inspired by his stuff and get to go "shopping" among the "treasures"!
Recently I eyeballed this shopping cart among the stuff. When I first enquired about it, I was met with some reluctance. FM had picked it up on one of his jobs and had envisioned using it to haul tools around his shop and equipment yard. After a little persuasion, I was able to move it around to the front yard! I debated on whether to fill the buggy up with soil to plant in, but decided to place pots in the buggy, just as if you were strolling the garden center, picking out plants to take home.
It is now nestled in my flower bed and creates a focal point for this area. A rectangle pot of petunias sits in the child's seat, zebra grass, verbena, creeping jenny, assorted foliage, and a rope plant fill the three pots in the buggy.

So what do ya think? So have you ever taken one man (or woman's) trash and turned it into a cool garden treasure?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Update

Well I took Farmall Man to the orthopedic doctor yesterday and we got a good report!

For starters - NO surgery for his broken collar bone...hip hip hooray.

The doctor was very nice and talkative and said for him to keep wearing the figure eight brace he has been wearing this week. We go back in about two weeks for more x-rays to make sure everything is healing properly. He should be completely healed in about two months.

Hopefully he can get back to normal soon. It's killing him to not be able to do all the regular farm work and him and his dad are getting ready to start baling hay soon. Until then, Im trying to take care of all the chores and him too.

This year I didn't plant a vegetable garden and have had significantly less plants in the yard. I just didn't feel motivated to plant lots of stuff and didn't want to spend hours watering. Now that my yard time is going to limited, I am thankful I don't have a lot of extra plants to take care of.