How The West Was Spun

Friday Garden Notes

Almost at the end of June and a somewhat mixed-bag success/failure scenario happening in the garden department here. 

We really don't see much in the way of squirrels or chipmunks around here.  A little higher up - yes, or a little lower - yes,  but not here.  However, we did have one little guy skulking around the back courtyard and I'm fairly sure he was the culprit who took down all my onion tops, ate most of the dill, all but one head of lettuce, and lopped off my pea plants (all but one) at the ground.  Sigh.

I also think he may have gnawed on the jalapeno pepper, but that sucker bit back and there are just a few teeth marks at the lowest tip of the fruit, but it survived.

However, what I CAN grow is pumpkin!  After the loss of all but the one plant, it has become Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors and is growing visibly daily with tons of pretty blossoms on it. 

(Note to self: Add to pumpkin recipe list.)

The tomatoes are coming along.  Lots of the little cherry tomatoes which should be ripe in another 10 days or so.  And my plum tomatoes are starting to produce as well.  We did cut some of the remaining lettuce last night to have with dinner, which was really good.  I do have one lone green bean plant trying to make its way in the world as well. 

My porch railing plantings and the new potted plants have also been doing really nicely.  We have been watering them daily (it's been really hot this week here), but they seem to be staying moist and doing okay despite the heat.  I am really happy with this striped coleus and striped petunia combo by the front walk.

And on the back porch, these cheerful boxes are a nice little lift whenever I look out the kitchen window.

All for now......

Garden Update: Early June

I'm bypassing 10 on Tuesday today for a quick garden update.  

Peas:  Happy and doing great.  I added some twine for them to climb up - the winds have been fairly high here most days and they really needed a little extra something to keep from spending the day laid over in the gales.

Pumpkin:  I have nursed this one along enough I think it is past being eaten by the birds.  (Although they took every last one of my cucumber plants out.  Sigh.)

And we have one lone jalapeno pepper that's made a showing so far.

I should note these pics were taken just after I watered - we still haven't had any rain and it's kind of nasty here this a.m. with the Thompson Fire smoke settling down the hill for us.  They are saying maybe storms later this week, but then again, they've been promising that for most of the spring off and on and we've yet to see more than a passing stray drop.  I'm ready for an east coast spring with daily rain for a year or so!

All for now....

Garden Update: May

Temps here have definitely warmed up.  We've been in the 70s during the day and 40s at night.  While I'm grateful for sun to encourage the little plants along, some rain sure would be nice.  We had black clouds most of yesterday afternoon and it rained a whole minute and a half  yesterday out of all of that. 

I've put in my peppers, basil and tomato plants.  The cherry tomatoes actually each have a couple of small fruits starting - about the size of small grapes right now.   The birds (and I get it - we are in year 3 of a drought and there's not much to eat around here) went nuts over the seeds I planted.  They ate everything except a few stragglers of my scallions, so I replanted everything inside and tried again. 

The peas are doing great.

The jury is still out on the cucumbers - the birds have been pulling at the leaves of those, so I may have to pick up a 4-pack of larger started plants.  Likewise, the melon was apparently good eating since both tries at that disappeared.  I think I've managed to get the pumpkin far enough along that will be okay.  I replanted the spinach and we'll see how that goes, and I did get my dill plant started.  That little group of seedlings will be ready to thin out in another week or so.  

I have plastic bags tied on the trellises in the beds, which has seemed to help, but I suspect I'm going to need a cover for everything or the birds will eat the actual crop of anything resembling food (like the tomatoes, and at this point, I wouldn't put them past eating most of the veggies in there.)  The winds here are a bit problematic for that type of cover, but I'll do some research and see what might work best for our area here.

All for now..

Landscaping - Done!

Or at least mostly done.  We still have a few little things to do, like a raised bed by the front door (or we might just go with a bunch of really large containers - I have to see what I can find), but planting in the middle of an August drought really isn't the best plan.  The rock, however, is DONE!

This is the view from our back driveway, with the pretty little path curving around the front of the house.

And a shot looking up the stairs in the opposite direct from the lower driveway.

We are super pleased with how things turned out even tho it was a TON of work!  I think that's (hopefully) our last major project for the house this year.  We have a few other things on the grand-scheme list, but this one was definitely at the top.  It's so much nicer when we have windy days (which are pretty frequent here) not to have the front "yard" dust blowing into the house, and it looks much more manicured and neat, which I love!

All for now..

 

Landscape Update

While D and I have been sort of dragging our feet about going out and moving landscape rock most weekends (it being insanely hot and well... moving rock does not exactly equate to "fun times" in either of our books), we have gotten some major progress made on the front yard.

We have all our trees in - and have been watering them faithfully in an attempt to keep them from keeling over in the current drought/high temps.  You might remember the plan was to put in a xeriscape covering of landscape rocks in one color (which in our area is "Santa Fe Brown"), and then do the walkway along the front of the house and up to the front door in gray rocks.  I'm happy to say we have finished the larger sections with the brown rock coverage. 

More pics to come when we finish the rest of the rock - the camera battery died just after snapping this one.  It's made a huge difference in the amount of dust coming into the house around the front windows, and it definitely makes it look like we actually live here - a nice bonus.

Currently then, we've got left the gray stone walkways.  We have a small rock-edged garden by the front door which we need to put larger rocks in, and get a few planters (and decide what else to do there).  We have the section just to the right of the front door along the front of the house which needs weed barrier and rock laid down, and then that's the area we'll be adding a raised bed.  Less of a rush on these few things after we get the walkways done, but since D is off on a business trip for almost 2 weeks starting next Monday, we are going to wait until he gets home to finish that up.

And for a completely gratuitous shot of the pretty stone, here's a little yarn-y project as well.  (Full disclaimer:  I did not knit this!  This is my pattern, the Currach Stole, very graciously knitted up as a sample for me in my DK-weight BFL yarn in the shop, which is heading off to be a sample for the new wholesale account in Texas.  MANY thanks to Karen for zipping through this project for me!!)

All for now......

More Landscaping

D and I put some more time into the yard this week.  While we were in Colorado last weekend, our landscape dude brought us a couple of trees and put those in for us.  It took about 1 week of no shade after the pinion pine by the door was gone to decide we wanted larger trees than the 5-gallon bucks from Lowe's, so we bit the bullet and paid to have a couple of Ponderosa pines brought up from his nursery and installed.

These are nice-sized trees - we got two, one for each side of the yard - about 12 to 14 feet in height.   We added some soaker hoses for these youngsters and put a mulch layer in around their roots, and we'll try to keep them fairly moist despite our current lack of rain and the high winds (and 2% humidity right now).

We also put in some smaller trees that we had already purchased - a couple of ornamental plums and a pear tree so we have an arc of trees out in front of the house.  The smaller ones will eventually help shade the deck.  We are just about finished carting rock from the property up to the front yard to form the walkway edgings, although we decided that the trees would look great with some rocks around their base to delineate between the mulch and the landscape rock (which is set to be delivered sometime this week), so we've got a bit more to do.

It's getting there!  Our next task, once the landscape rock arrives, is to start laying weed barrier, which we'll start at the point farthest away from this photo, and then work our way back to this vantage point.

All for now....

Spring-y!

Despite the fact that we continue to have gorgeous warm sunny days interspersed with hit-and-miss cold, blustery and snowy days, it really is trying to be spring in these parts - and I have proof.

My lilacs have kicked it into gear:

I replanted the whiskey barrel planter we have in the back courtyard area with some strawberries, which have really started to take off:

And, D and I decided this year's big lawn and garden project would be to completely redo the front yard.  When we bought the house, there had been renters in for almost a full year, and we are pretty sure there used to be actual grass in the half-moon shape area outside the front door.  Which the renters didn't bother to water.  And that, followed with last year's drought has left us with nothing but dirt.

This weekend, D tackled getting some of the junipers trimmed back from the edge of this area.  He pulled out a few sagebrush bushes that had taken hold.  He cut down some form of ornamental small tree that would be where I'm standing in the above photo - it bloomed for a total of 2 days and wafted a dusty, sticky pollen all over the deck and the front windows, and then looked dead for the rest of the year.  He also pulled out 2 dead rosebushes and something else dead from the front bed on the left-hand side of the photo.

So here's the grand plan:

• First off, sadly (VERY SADLY), we have to have the pinon pine next to the front steps taken down.  It's pulling on the gutters and shingles, and it's starting to buckle the pavement (and we highly suspect the foundation).  It's leaning precariously in the wind storms we've been having and the arborist feels it likely it's just a question of when it'll come down on the house.  So we are getting estimates together to have that removed.
• Next, we are going to finish clearing the dead/semi-dead random shrubs (there are 4 in there - one of each of something or other) in the bed farthest along the walkway, near the steps.  We are going to build a raised bed in there and plant that with something like daylilies (something low maintenance) to give a little color/height to the foundation there.  We'll extend the daylilies down the small area next to the steps up the walkway from the driveway below.
• Third, we have one small lilac left next to the front door that's doing okay.  We'll be replacing the dead rosebushes with 3 more dwarf lilacs, to tie those in to the larger ones that run next to the deck on that end of the house.  Those will go here in this bed.

• Fourth, we are going to install a walkway of landscape pebbles and probably stepping stones along this bed, running out to the back of the yard, as well as a matching one that runs perpendicular to the house, extending out from the front door to our secondary driveway, which is where the UPS guy and other visitors seem to like to park, to walk up to the house.
• Fifth, we are going to put down landscape barrier and then a contrast-color of landscape pebbles over the rest of the yarn, adding in two dwarf fruit trees flanking the walkway that's perpendicular to the front door, two on each side.  Not too close to the house either, so we can enjoy them without worrying our foundation is getting pried apart.
• Finally, as a last note, we are going to revamp the little rock garden bed that sits empty (except for the weeds) just outside the walkway.  I think we may do a little solar-powered rock water fountain and possibly put in some native blooming (perennial) cacti around that for an accent out front.

We are excited about the project, although it'll be a LOT of work.  It'll be a great improvement to the front of the house and let us hopefully keep down the dust without having to water grass 24/7 here in the summer.

All for now.....

Building Projects

D has been busy working out in his wood shop recently.  After he had finished up my work station/table, he decided next on his list for the house was a new table for the eating area.  We don't really have a dining room, per se, but we do have a fairly spacious area to eat in with views out the deck.  We had been using a small-ish table I inherited from my grandmother, and we realized at Thanksgiving this year with 4 extra people around it, it was really too small for more than the 2 of us.

D had looked at several sets of designs, wasn't completely happy with any of them, and we went and looked at some actual finished pieces in furniture stores, but again, nothing he was completely happy with, so he designed his own.

It has some elements of Mission and Arts and Crafts, but he's lightened the lines a little bit so it's not quite so bulky.  The entire piece is out of cherry wood and it can seat 6 comfortably still with some space in the middle for serving pieces.

The top has breadboard ends (those pieces running along the edges).

And while D kept the slatted support details between the legs of a lot of tables we liked, he created a softer, curved shape to the leg supports.

We christened it this weekend with a nice brunch and coffee while we read the paper and watched the sun come up!

All for now....

I wish......

I could show you more pictures of beautiful blue sky and my handsome boys getting ready to go ride like this one:

 

But, alas.  I do not. It's just been one of those weekends, I guess.

D and I hauled down to Quemado Lake, NM, to do a new-to-us ride, Ride the Divide, up in the scenic Gila National Forest.  We got a good early start on Friday a.m., and were planning to ride Saturday and Sunday with the boys.  When we got in on Friday around lunchtime, we got camp set up and tacked the boys up to take an easy jaunt out the first bit of the trail we'd be riding on Saturday a.m.  We don't do anything fast or fancy - we just walk to get the trailer stiffness out and take a look at the trail.

The boys both quieted down as soon as they saw the ribbons - they are smart and knew exactly why we were there.  We rode up to the first trail junction and then turned around to head back to camp.  We were walking quietly along, looking at the scenery, when Bhen turned his head to look at something (not in a spooky way, just to see what he could see in the woods), and caught his toe on a rock in the road, and took a major tumble down to his knees.  His left front was only lightly scraped up, but his right knee was bleeding badly from several places. 

We walked the boys back into camp, and using bottled water, I tried to get the worst of the dirt irrigated out.  It really didn't look good.  At ALL.  So I applied ice packs and got the bleeding stopped, irrigated out the wound again, packed it with antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it.  The race vet said he didn't think it could be sutured, but there was no way I was going to take Bhen out for 50 miles on that leg either. 

Saturday a.m., we loaded back up at early o'clock, and hauled back home.   I called our absolutely stellar vet (who I love, but frankly?  We have seen FAR too much of him this year) and had him on alert to come by in the afternoon to take a look at the leg for me.  When he got there, he got Bhen sedated, and wound up cutting off the skin flap that was still hanging off (it wasn't salvageable), irrigated out the wound, injected some local anesthetic into it, plus some antibiotics, and got it all closed (it was a 3-pronged burst laceration) with 7 staples.  Hopefully staples can come out in 10 days to 2 weeks, but we are being only cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to go to our next ride in June.  The main thing is that (as of today's bandage change), it looks really pretty good.  The laceration edges have pulled together.  There was only minimal seepage and that's all dried, and the swelling has gone down a lot too (so I am hopeful we had no bony involvement).

Here's my boy being very good about his leg bandage, which I'm sure is hot and itchy. 

 

So, you know.... being insane, and having 2 now unscheduled days off, D and I finished the barn for the boys (except for the roofline cap and the trim), and ran fence line.  That was the (very limited) silver lining amongst all this mess.

The original pasture fence ran out perpendicular to the left-hand opening of the barn you see above.  We bumped it out to allow the boys access to the barn (obviously), and then ran it another 30 feet or so out from the barn, and across to tie into the existing fence.  We still have more cactus to clear to give them all of the planned extra 40 feet, but they are brutal right now in terms of thorns, so we'll wait until their growing season is over. 

The new pasture almost doubles their space, plus, they now have shade from about 9:30 a.m. on during the entire day, and protection from the storms.  A double bonus, since we need to keep Bhen's bandages dry.  It's supposed to be very hot here over the next week, so we were really glad today to see them both move right into the shade after breakfast and not venture out really until dinnertime.  They celebrated their good fortune with a little mutual grooming.

 

Totally not the weekend we had planned, but on the other hand, the boys love their new barn and I know D and I both feel better we can get them in out of the sun and heat and afternoon thunderstorms when we need to.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Big Bhen heals up quickly!

All for now.....
 

Spinning Friday - More Singles

It's Friday again!  I've got a couple of in-progress singles for you, but first up, a shot of my new and (mostly) put together spinning area. We do have some pictures yet to hang - that always seems to take us a long time for whatever reason.  The Wyeth print is going above the woodstove, which I am standing next to while I took this shot.

Emma's got her spot on the chair to the right, and you can see evidence of Rowan's chew-toy in the foreground if you look for it.

And now for the spinning:

Stone Castles is actually progressing.  I had taken the final 3 ounces and stripped the roving into 12 thinner strips to break up the color a little bit.  I started on the second bobbin of singles.

I also finished up the first bobbin (1 ounce worth) of singles of the pink superfine merino from the Oceanwind Fibers Club "Peppi".

 
 
I have some spinning time blocked out for Sunday while D has to run into work, and my plan is to tackle more of the Stone Castles then.

All for now......