I catch myself falling out of control every day... I try to pick one thing to do and not to start anything else until that one thing is done, but many times I'll suddenly realize that I'm no longer doing what I set out to do. Instead, I was distracted by something else and am doing that instead. For instance, this morning I decided to feed the birds, but on the way to the feeding station I noticed a plant that needed watered, then I noticed another, and another...next thing I knew all 180 feet of garden hose was stretched out and I was watering the garden, and the poor birds hadn't been fed yet!
And, my mind is almost always mulling landscape designs, no matter what my hands are doing- I'm mentally arranging plants,shrubs, trees and rocks, trying to imagine all the possibilities. Except for several trees that I've always wanted to have, everything will be transplanted from existing flower beds or the "old" garden space where I started storing things until I was able to find a new place for them. I still have six flower beds to do away with, and the old pond area still has plants that need moved, although the water part of the pond is gone.
For the second time in 10 years all my landscaping rocks, except for the pond rocks,have been gathered into one place, thanks to Rod and Chris. As soon as the grass is planted I'll start on the patio, by that I mean I'll be laying 6 tons of flagstone. This will be the second time I've done this. The first time Rod was working out of town and I was on my own,I did ok with that but was never perfectly happy with the stones being set in crushed limestone- very messy! The same flagstone has now been lifted out of the limestone and I'll be re-using it in a new patio, this time in a much better foundation because I'll be setting them in concrete. I know this will be a really big job, if Rod helps me build a form I'm confident that I can take it from there...
I rented a contraption called a "York rake", which attaches to our lawn mower and gets dragged around the yard raking up the bigger rocks as well as roots sticking out of the ground. By Monday the yard should be ready for grass seed!
That makes me think of our dog Bear... 10 years ago, when we first moved back here in the woods, we were anxious to get grass growing. We had a very large yard then too, and I walked around spreading seed with the seeder for quite awhile in one direction before it was time to turn around. When I did turn around, there was Bear. He had been following along behind me, walking through the grass seed I had just spread. As far as he was concerned we were just taking a stroll through the yard, not planting grass. Bear had very hairy feet, and sure enough, when I lifted his paw to check, the hair was packed with grass seed! It wasn't a problem though, the grass grew ok, no dog paw shaped bare spots anywhere...
Here are a few random pictures from around the Crouse House..
The Strawberries:
I guess I must think I don't have enough to do...on our way home yesterday Chris and I saw an Amish buggy parked on the corner of Rt. 408 and Johnstown Rd. with a sign attached to it that said "Strawberries". We stopped, the strawberries were only $2 a qt. so I bought 10 qts. I finally finished cleaning, crushing and freezing them at 2 a.m. Check out the mutant strawberry, doesn't it look like a flower?
The Flower Boxes:
I had a terrible time finding brackets to hang flower boxes from our deck railing. Our railings are made of a composite material and are rounded on the top, and are much bigger than wrought iron railings, which are the only round brackets I could find. I searched the World Wide Web for many hours and couldn't find anything that would fit our railing. Finally, at Stan's Garden Center I found a bracket with a round top...it wasn't perfect, Rod had to use his big manly biceps and bend the metal to fit the railing, but it seems to have worked...none of the boxes have fallen off the railing yet! I had my flowers planted in those green plastic bags for hanging plants, and they weren't growing nicely. I ripped those bags open and re-planted the plants in the flower boxes, and I believe they are smiling now! Soon they'll grow over the sides and hang down the railing...I love flower boxes!
This is my water garden now, a rain barrel. The only water plant that I kept was my miniature water lily named "Susie".
Beautiful!!!! Good job sister!!!
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