Wanna be green thumb has struck again!!!

All weekend we spent in our backyard. It’s sad to say we have been rather neglectful when it comes to keeping it all nice and purty. So we were out there all day Saturday and for the most part the girls helped but then a good share of the time they were doing this

Yeah teasing Dutchess don’t ya see!! They had her ball and were playing baseball with a stick!! Cracked me up though with QueenB pitching and Toughie swinging they managed to connect several times. Plus of course they always had a fielder. Dutchess has become very skilled in fetching. It’s the dropping part we are having some troubles with. Tug o’ war is a must in her book.

So then on to Sunday it was back to the grind. The Hubby’s Uncle came over and was our slave helped us. The lovely guys built us a new gate so that we can have a “dog yard” and “people yard.” When Dutchess was a puppy she broke the old gate that was up there. With a little help from Daisey too. While they were doing that, and cleaning up brush that was taking over the back shed, we were working in what is now known as “our” garden.

Yes no longer my garden It’s ours now. Toughie says and I quote, “Sammi since I’m working on the garden it’s mine too, right? I mean it’s ours now?”

“Well of course Toughie!! *laughing* Why didn’t you think it was ours before?”

“Because only you worked in it. But now that I helped it’s mine too!!”

Their thought process still perplexes me.

So as you can see our house is on one side of the yard, the road is on the South and we have a row of very tall trees on the west (you can’t see these I’m telling you). This is real nice once afternoon hits. When it hits about two pm most the yard is in shade. However before then it is all sun. We looked so goofy today I stuck a stick in the yard and put the beach umbrella on it. That way our chairs and drinks were able to stay shaded and cool. I don’t handle heat very well at all. I have had heat exhaustion several times, a couple to the point of completely passing out. I tell you that is no fun. So I have to make sure I have shade somewhere and of course TONS of fluid. Anyway off on a tangent again. Sorry I did not snap a picture of the umbrella but I will tomorrow when we are back out there. We finally have woodchips to spread out into our nicely weeded garden.

So we are going to be prepared…

and another just because!! Oh if you don’t know, or well I haven’t specified… QueenB is on the left and of course Toughie on the right. Oh and yup they both have glasses now. Yippeee for me!!!

See they have their gloves and tools!! Oh and here is something that ERKS me to no end, why on earth do they not make kid’s garden gloves small enough?? UGH we just said phooey and they put on some old winter gloves. Worked perfectly and they were happy. Not that they don’t like getting dirty I didn’t want a repeat of sliced hands from the grass just like when they were feeding Booger’s goats. That was not a nice afternoon.

So of course what next is this…

After all that work our family did what we do best. When it’s summer and it’s a holiday we grill together!! Well no need for holiday we just do it. Reason I am showing you these two pics is one it was Father’s day and that’s my Dad!! Two see behind him that little guy in the red shirt… Oh wait lets get QueenB to move…

Ok is that better? Do you see him now?? That is my middle nephew (in the far back is Booger the oldest and Moose is by QueenB in the front here) OK so HMMMM we will call him… Duck, yeah that will work because he is one weird duck… So Duck kept telling my dad to “do it again!” So my dad would lean back to squish him. He would start giggling and eventually you would hear “K up Papa up” all straining for breath. However after this round as soon as Dad leaned back we hear from him “up papa UPPPP you are hurting my weiner!!!” OMG did we all bust up laughing. I had tears running down my face it was so funny. Plus as soon as papa sat up Duck just adjusted and you heard “do it again!!” My sister claims he LOVES pain. I think it’s rather apparent oh and there were more stories to go with.

So eventually we got home and we were heading in the house and we seen this!

Toughie is jumping up and down, “a rainbow, A RAINBOW!! My very firstest real RAINBOW in my whole life!!!” *jump jump jump*

So of course I had to snap some pictures. She was just so SO excited!

Wanna be green thumb employs questionable laborer’s…

First let me start with I think Mother Nature is either menopausal or trying to smite me. Either way we went from 80’s on Thursday to barely 60 and rain on Friday. Then came Saturday where once again it was barely 30 and that stupid white CRAP was falling once again!! So then we hit Sunday. Yes the sun was out however we were only mid 50’s at best. Totally unbelievable!! Needless to say we were home for once and didn’t have to run off somewhere. So we decided what better day than today to enforce some child labor, right?
After the girls went and picked out their perfect work clothes. Out to our back/side yard we went. Raking and picking up sticks.
QueenB consistently thought her rake had to be leaf free.

Wrong end their Toughie!!

Seemed to be no matter how much they raked they couldn’t keep it in a straight line. That wasn’t our thing Ms. Perfect QueenB wanted it that way.
(Note the boots on their feet ;) and they had to have their worker bibs on today. It was too cute!)

Toughie telling QueenB to do it yourself then. (Ha Ha no one bosses me around hmph)

We found so many cool things out in the yard. For example apparently we have been attacked by Woody!!

He left his mark everywhere in the back yard!! Take a look.
Here,

and here,

and here!

So then we went to go work in the garden. If you saw last Monday’s post True Confessions of a Wanna be green thumb. Here I showed off my gardens, or lack there of. I’m not going to show you what we have done so far to fix them, but I’ll just tell you we managed to weed a TON of grass from the side yard and put up the rock line in front of it. The front garden wasn’t touched at all. (poor thing) Anyway while we were digging away, we found a few things. I’m so proud of my girls for not being squeamish about gettin’ dirty or picking up things like…
WORMS!!!

He wasn’t a keeper to go fishing with so we decided to put him back. Of course that was after much convincing they didn’t need a worm in the house. I swear some days I’m raising two boys. (check the fingers!! see how filthy we were already!)

Then we found this weird little thing he is on the rock there, sorry I didn’t get a close up, but he was brick red and hard shell on one end and like a worm on the other. All in all we had a great day. We finished the rocks and most of the weeds. Hope next weekend is nice so we can plant some rose bushes and maybe some bulbs. However with Mother Nature being so wishy-washy we might have to wait a bit longer.
On a further note thank heavens for a shower in this house, or I’d have been cleaning a dirt ring for days with how much dirt came off of all of us.

True Confessions of a Wanna be green thumb.

So here it is my true confessional of the month week day time being.

I wish I had my grandmother’s green thumb. Instead no, I got the thumb of death, or dust, or well absolutely no gardening talent at all. If I was put in charge to grow a garden for us all to survive, then I’m extremely sorry folks but we are SCREWED!

Now just because I don’t have my thumb yet, (I’m staying hopeful) doesn’t mean I don’t try.

Last year I tried, and I think my setup was rather splendid in the front. What was suppose to grow back is and I’m very excited about that. I’ve taken a picture here for you to see what it looks like at this very moment and I hope as spring and summer progress I can show you what more I have accomplished. Plus the important part of what's actually growing back.

Off to the left is where I will have a gorgeous bird feeder that my Hubby’s grandpa made, that has stepping stones back to it. There are also various other garden statues/items that were put away for winter. My next goal out here is to fill in the empty areas which really only is one, and figure out what to put down to keep the grass out. (any tips would be greatly appreciated) For the most part up front here I have a theme which I’ve been old that a neighbor has named Fire and Ice. Most, if not all, my flowers are red, orange, yellow, and the bush there you can see has red leaves. It’s also a pretty picky bush, but maybe that will be a deterrent to someone trying to get in the garden later on. Now the ice comes from the glass blocks I used, which were free from a friend, and you absolutely can’t beat that.

Next was the mission of something in our back/side yard. I started it but rather lost inspiration halfway through.

We had originally tilled up a diagonal section in this corner, had placed an arbor that I’m hoping to plant climbing roses up this year. I love roses, and really hope they can bare with me and survive.

 

Our biggest problem is this little thing in the bottom right corner. A bunch of the stuff I planted back here she went and dug up. So far all I see coming back is what I believe are the Iris’s.

 

I originally had went and dug/picked all these rocks out of the rock piles at my parents farm to run along the diagonal edge to mark off the flower bed. However like I said I lost inspiration on the whole project and really all they seem to line right now is the front fence.

Whether the lack of inspiration or energy was the culprit I don’t plan on that being the issue this year. We are going to make a fence with a gate to section off a doggy part of the yard, and a people part of the yard. After that is all set, I hope that my green thumb will magically appear this year, and I’ll get to share it all later.

Off to work in the yard now can’t pass up this 70 degree day. Especially in Northern Michigan where last Thursday we woke up to snow on the ground.