Life

I remembered to take some pictures last night!

My newly cleaned out flowerbed:

Yes there are trees growing that Todd needs to cut out. I'm planning on dividing/moving some of my daylillies, black eyed susans, purple coneflowers, coral bells and iris and putting in here. I do have in there a couple daylillies, an iris, a hosta, a miniature hollyhock and some coral bells which I'm intending to keep there. Of course, now that it is relatively empty, I need to get more mulch.

The daylillies are just starting to bloom:

The clematis is blooming:

Question for anyone? These clematis are behind some rhododendron's. So we have not been able to "train" them to go up the deck. As soon as Todd gets a free moment, he is pulling out the rhododendrons for me - they are looking really sickly and have for a number of years now. Can I cut the clematis off at ground level to hopefully train them better next year? I love this purple one - there are 3 of them back in behind the rhody's - a white one, a purple one and a burgendy one.

The bog filter on the pond is really kicking in and the pond is now crystal clear (almost). The downside is I found more baby fish in the pond over the weekend. I think we are up over 20 fish now - hopefully I can find friends and family that want some fish!!!

And this is what we worked on last night. Or rather, Todd, Tyler and a friend of ours worked on. I was told my job was to bring cold drinks and keep them coming.

I love it when my job is simple!

Have a great day

Kris

It's not Quilty but it is Crafty

My sewing machine died. I haven't had the TIME to go near it in weeks, but of course, this weekend I want to finish up a quilt top to send it out for quilting and it dies (Todd and I have talked and in the interest of saving wear and tear on my machine, anything larger than a lap quilt I will be sending out to be quilted - we just cannot fit in the budget right now the machine that I want). Not sure what happened to it - it worked fine when Jessie took it to sewing camp last Monday night, and she sewed on it some on Friday just playing around. It's going to the doctor this afternoon when I am off work. It runs, it just won't pick up the bobbin thread and SEW. It was time for a good cleaning anyhow so.....

But I'm still being crafty. And this sort of crafting I can do sitting out on the deck, or on the swing or by the pool:

Luxe Neckwarmers from Knit 2 together. I had to make 2 - the first one (the dark brown one) I bound off too tightly and can barely get it over my head.

The start of my Flair sweater. I've been working on this one for a week Sunday, it would be going a LOT quicker if I hadn't had to rip it back and start over 3 times. I should have started over again - the button holes really aren't in the right place and there are a couple spots on the button bands where I screwed it up minorly but.....it is what it is.

And the deconstructed jacket I started? I'm almost done with it - but it's very slow going and VERY boring.

And I got a wild hair on Friday and ripped out a good 40 foot section of my flowerbeds. Things were growing too wild for me - and were overtaking my rose bushes. So I hauled 3 yard cart fulls of flowers up into the woods. I'll be replacing them this fall with stuff that does not take over, like black eyed susans, day lillies, coral bells and iris's (yellow yarrow, red yarrow, red valerian, white valerian, hardy geraniums and perennial bachelor buttons are what left). Of course, now I need more mulch since that flower bed is mostly empty. I'll try and remember to take pictures this afternoon.

See ya,
Kris

Happy Belated 4th of July!!!!

Hi everyone! Yes, it's been awhile since I've been here, but as happens....things get HECTIC. And it seems like this summer is even worse. But we are enjoying it so far, so I cannot complain.

Last night was Orrville Fireworks. This year, we met up with friends there at the high school and had a picnic.

9 kids, 8 adults. And a TON of food.

We met up there about 5 or so, with hotdogs, smoked sausage, pasta salad, wings, crackers & dip, chips & dip, key lime pie, strawberry shortcake, chocolate cake, cheese cake, watermelon, veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, s'mores.... (notice the desert theme going on???). The chocolate cake was a birthday cake for America - but we did not put the candles on it.

The kids had fun, the adults had fun, and the fireworks were fantastic!!!

And if the camping grill dies so you cannot roast your marshmallows, you roast them over the citronella candle (we hurried up and restarted the grill for the kids to do some marshmallows:) and threw out the citronella scented ones before they could eat them)

Getting out of there at 10:45 when the fireworks were over was not fun. Neither was the hour long wait in traffic but.....

I've been busy in my flowerbeds, veggie garden and the barns. I'll be back later with more of what we've been doing the past week.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We're off to another picnic this afternoon (3 fun picnics in 3 days now), so I really need to get the yard mowed. It's looking a little ragged around the edges.......

Firefighter Festival

Yes, I'm good lately at disappearing, aren't I?

But with good reason.....

This past weekend was our local firefighter's festival. It started with the parade Friday night and moved onto a kiddie tractor pull, games and fireworks Saturday night.

The kids had every intention of riding on the ladder truck from CFD where Todd is a volunteer, however, when you are called out on a house fire 3 hours before the parade starts, that sort of nixes that idea.

But the kids and I had fun at the parade. Lots of candy was caught. The entire parade was about a mile long. Lots and lots of firetrucks (from 6 different departments - all volunteer) all blowing their sirens, horns and who knows what else.

I thought for a while there I would need new eardrums, but they have sufficiently recovered.

Saturday morning found me out in the garden at 7:00 in the morning. With temperatures in the 90's, I needed to get out there and do it early. I was out there until about 9:30 - 10:00. But I can now see my tomatoes. We had to replant the green beans, beets and squash - either the weeds/grass or the torrential rains we've been having did them in. No pictures of my garden yet - I still have the peppers to weed:)

Saturday night we went up to the fireworks. Todd's pager goes off - house fire in a neighboring town calling for LOTS of help. His fire chief calls - can you go direct to the fire - they need help bad. So we head back to our house in my truck so that Todd can get his truck with lights and sirens and his fire gear. Let's put it this way - we thought my truck had something in the fuel line - it keeps hesitating and racing every once in a while. As fast as he went to get back to our house - all the carbon is blown clean out of the engine. Todd got his truck and his gear, and the kids and I turned around and headed back to the fireworks, eat ice cream and meet back up with friends. Since Mr. Lactose Intolerance was not with us - we each had the biggest cones we could get.

Off to work and to catch up later today on everyone's lives! Have a great day

Kris

Peace

Jessie's been at 4-H sewing camp for the last 3 days so both kids have been at a friends house (one one hand, it's great having friends for both kids that are the same age as Jessie and Tyler and are also brother and sister....on the other hand - you get 4 kids at the same time). I would drop them off at 7:30 a.m. - go to work until 2, go get Jessie and her friend at 4 at camp, swing by and pick up Tyler and drop off Blair, and rush home to dinner.

So my trusty babysitter has not been here until today. I went and picked Tyler up at 10 (both kids spent the night at a friends' house last night) and picked up the babysitter and her brother who came to play with Tyler for the day.

Somehow, when I walked in the door at 5:00, it seemed much better when she had been here for the day and vacuumed my house, dusted, cleaned the kitchen and folded the 8 loads of laundry for me.

I think I'm getting spoiled:)

Now I'm off to go sit on my swing and enjoy the breeze. Oh....she cooked dinner for us too for tonight..........

Kiss A Fish

Yes, that is my 2 1/2 year old niece kissing the fish she caught when we went fishing. Ugh.

We've been doing LOTS of fishing lately. The kids, their cousins, their cousins cousins. Good thing all these kids get along. 7 kids, 8 adults.

And Jessie caught a BIG catfish. With Daddy's help - her lightweight pole just handled it.

The first night, all the kids caught 2-3 bluegill each (and the catfish). And it's been that way every time since.

Of course, they all want to catch catfish now.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. It was a fun day, filled with yarn shopping, fishing and a cookout. I did catch 2 fish myself. But I didn't bait the hook or take the fish off. Between Jessie, Tyler and I - we kept Todd busy baiting our hooks and removing the fish. So much so, the guys left at 10:00 that night to go catfish fishing and were out until 1:30.

rem

My Herb Garden

Is coming along rather nicely I should say. I finally got it mulched last Sunday – it does not have enough mulch to suit me but….it is a start. I need some great big rocks to put in here to liven things up, as well as a flag and a couple other decorations.


Now I need to find a good dehydrator to preserve this bounty. Cooking with homegrown herbs is so much better than the stuff you pay 2 arms and a leg for from the store.