The Long Weekend Is Finally Here!

I have been waiting for this long weekend for what seems like an eternity. Ron and I even tacked yesterday on as an extra day. We are both wiped out from work and running all the time. I needed a chance to catch up inside and out and relax a little. I had big plans to move a bunch of things around in the garden. A few new pass along plants have found there way to me and I have been checking out the sales and of course I've picked up a few things...

Rather than hit the gardens right away, Ron talked me into a walk. He loves to "walk the land." You would think we were land barons or the place was in his family for 100 years. Instead it's just 43 acres and we have only been here five years. We usually head across the road rather than behind the house because there is more excitement down by the creek. Our first discovery was that the little creek, right across the road is pretty dry. It has been low before, but it's never dried up since we've been here. Ron put those rocks across the creek our first summer here. The water usually runs just over them but it makes a little babbling brook sound. This is the first time I've seen the bottom. My positive guy says, hey I bet that's really good dirt if you want some. I don't know if I'm that obsessed. Then again, we pulled out some scraggly pricker bushes from the side of the house recently. There are some indents in the ground that do need dirt....hum...



The sunflower patch Ron planted early this year isn't far from where we cross the little creek. We put the mass planting where we could see it from our front porch looking down across the flats. The reason the photo is from the field and not our front porch is that all the flowers face the field! It is kind of funny actually. The trees must shade it just enough that they look toward the field for sun. It did come out nice, just not what we envisioned.


We literally buy a bag of sunflower seeds that are meant to be bird food so we never know what they will look like. This years have a yellow center. If they were the dark centers, I planned to do some serious seed saving but they are still pretty. I'm sure I'll save some.

Remember that wild lily I posted about earlier in the summer? (if Apple wasn't vacationing, she could link to it for me...I am still learning all the tricks.) (ETA: Even on vacation I can add a link ;) Anyway, this is what it looks like now. Ron is much taller and could reach one of the pods for me. It had a thick white fill inside. I realize this is probably a dumb question but will the pods get seeds later? I would love to add this lily to the gardens by the house but I don't want to risk moving the only flower there. Seeds would be the perfect solution!

When we made to the big creek, we found the water pretty low there as well. I am standing in the middle of the creek bed to get this shot. I have a friend coming up Sunday so her little boy can fish and play in the creek. Looks like we will be wading, not floating on tubes. It probably won't matter to a seven year old. There's always fun to be had in a creek when you're seven! Liz just turned thirteen and doesn't want to float in it anymore since it's "gross!" (That's her exclaimation point.) Poor Ron, his little girl is growing up and we've hit the teen years in full force already! He can't relelate to the creek being "gross", LOL.

At the end of the season, there are beautiful yellow flowers that line the banks. They are six to seven feet tall! A few are starting to bloom. They are beautiful in mass along the water!

After the walk I worked on catching up on weeding but I have decided to wait on moving things around. I am anxious to rearrange a bit but I didn't realize just how dry it was. I'm sure there will still be some hot days and I'm safer to wait a few weeks. I will get my pass-a-longs planted though.

I hope everyone has a wonderful labor day weekend!

Wild Lily?

Ron has the week of and borrowed a friends brush hog. Basically it cuts down the high grass and weeds. He had a blast riding his tractor, edging the fields and making paths. We took a big walk to check out his handy work and found this beautiful flower growing wild down by the creek. It is about five feet high and looks like some sort of Lily to me. The underside was dotted like a tiger lily but my photo didn't come out very good. The flower is growing down a bank and I was teetering trying to get the shot. What a gorgeous flower! I wish there were more to be found so I could snag one for the garden but since there is only one, I think I will just enjoy it on our walks.

Another Great Day!

Apple was right about being in a holding pattern, It seems like there hasn't been too much to post about. The Colonel and I spent yesterday preparing for my brother and his family's visit in a few weeks. They live in Texas but their oldest is graduating from a college in the East. After the graduation they will stop here for a few days. It will be great to have everyone together! Apple and her kids will venture up and our Mom will have all her kids, grandchildren and great grandchildren together. All the excitement tires her out but she absolutely glows!

It was another great day for working outside with blue skies and sun. We washed the siding and outdoor furniture. Our old arbor had rotted and our new one arrived yesterday late in the day. It has a curved top and should work nicely. While I pulled my "mystery plants" that turned out to be pretty aggressive weeds, the Colonel scrapped the fence between one of the flower beds and his vegtable garden. It looks a little rough now but it will look nice when it has a fresh coat of paint. We even installed a new shower head for the family's arrival! I think they need to visit more often ;o)

After we worked, we decided a little play was in order and went for a big walk down by the creek. The fishermen had beat down a path that we followed. Everything in the woods was looking pretty green. When we came back, we cut up by they edge of our land and there is a small creek where the land looked so plush I had to get a shot of it. I wish the grass at the house was looking so green!

A walk by the creek.

When we had a few nice days the weekend before last, we went down to check out the creek that borders our land. It is about twice as wide as it normally is due to all the melting snow. The water was running fairly fast in some areas and were were thinking what great tubing it would make if it wasn't so cold! There are several large trees forming a little dam where the creek curves. The water is still running there but nature has made a new path. The creek splits off a bit North of the blockage and a mini bed that normally would only have water in the spring and dry up in the summer is taking on much of the water. It is almost as wide as the original path and the water is running faster there. It will be interesting to see how it all will look when things have settled down a bit. I will miss the bend in the creek if the new split takes dominance but it may be a good thing since the field floods every spring with the force of the high waters. The new creek path diverts the water away from where it comes up into the field.

Hi Everyone, I'm Country Girl, Apple's Sister

I thought I would tell you a little about myself for my first post. As Apple told you, my husband and I have a small farm in zone four. He grew up on a farm and always dreamed of having a little land. We have 43 acres which is plenty for the two of us, his daughter Liz and our two cats Franklin and Princess! We are blessed with a creek that borders the property and have fun floating in it in the summer months. I didn't start gardening until we moved here. The couple that lived here for the 50 years before us loved to garden and left us some wonderful surprises! We moved in, in December so I had no idea of all the wonderful plants that would bloom as spring turned to fall. I had never gardened much before so it took me a while to figure out what the plants were that were already here and of course, I've add some new ones! My husband, enjoys puttering in the vegetable garden that seems to get bigger every year while I focus on the flowers. Franklin and Princess love to go out and lay in the sun in the summer. Franklin also loves to help us type so any misspellings you see from me are probably typos I will blame on him! Since blogging is all new to me, Apple added a photo of the creek and our cats below. Someday, I too will be able to add a photo!