Bunny birdbath

I'm so excited about my latest addition to my garden!  I've been wanting a real bird bath but of course I  also wanted to be able to thrift it. This bunny bird bath was free on NextDoor, so I snatched it up in a heart beat! I decided to make this section of my garden a little sitting area. The street noise is way too loud for it to be a relaxing place to sit but the birds will enjoy it! At some point I will add a bench and maybe a little table. I will try and add some nice ground cover once I get the soil healthy. Still I'm so thrilled to finally have a real bird bath and finding it for free!

Gnome at Home

The Gnome at Home project is getting closer to being done!  Tami at Cottage Craft did a super job of adding a door to the bird houses turning it into a gnome house.

I now have to decide if I should paint it a bright color or go with a forest mossy look. I did find some doll furniture I hope will fit into the Gnome house.

If you don't remember what this project is here's the quick update. 

Everyday the boys will check the Gnome's house for either a surprise or clue to where the Gnome has left his treasure. They only get the clue/treasure if they left something in return for Gnome.

 

Little Garden Surprise

If you've been following my blog, I've been working on bringing back (make healthy) the soil in my front yard. I've only done a little planned planting of some border plants but that's about it.  Several squash plants have sprout from the compost so I let them go wild. This volunteer sunflower popped up this week from the bird seed feeders. It was such a nice pop of surprise color!

My garden will never be a lush green oasis but once the permeant edging plants are mature, will at least not look like a vacant lot. :) 

Cutie Pie Buzz

This past week I've been babysitting this cutie - Buzz. In this photo he's pouty because I wouldn't give him a third bowl of popcorn. Normally we have our popcorn outside but with the weather being so hot, it was more comfortable to put everything in a his bowl. 

While I'm there I take care of the bird feeders which there are a lot of! Nice to enjoy my coffee out on the deck and watch all a the bird swoop in. They are so use to being fed, that some of the little ones fly in while I'm filling the feeders! Still working on training the crows and they make really good work of eating up all the mice I've been catching. I know it sounds gross but the crows really do enjoy it and it's so much better than throw the mice into the trash cans. I'll be spending most of September with Buzz as his family will be traveling a lot this fall. 

Quick trip to Turkey

Something I always found sad was meeting women who are afraid to travel without a partner. That they live with regrets or angry that they never got to see the world. Then old age catches  up with them and they can't physically travel.

I raised my children to be very independent and confident in how to navigate the world on their own. It makes me so happy to see my children flying off to visit different countries and experience the world. I started traveling internationally on my own over 25 years ago when I realized who I was married to at the time wasn't comfortable going anywhere they didn't speak English.  If I wanted to see the world I would have to do it on my own. 

My daughter made a quick trip to Turkey (only a four flight from the Netherlands) to meet up with a college roommate who was doing a site visit. I know the logistics for the trip had be intense as both of them have young children at home but they made it work. Looking forward to hearing about the trip and all the spices they are bringing back!

Squash Plants 2023

I've been slowly working on the front garden area, trying to get the soil back to being healthy. With all the years of neglect the soil is pretty much as hard a cement. I've been doing direct composting but I know that will take a long time to get anything to grow. 

Some squash plants sprung up near my compost bin so I just let them grow. If nothing else there is life in the yard and the bees seems to like it. I was going to take out the apple tree which is more like a bush because most of the branches are diseased. But it started flowering again so I'm leaving it for the bees. I will cut it way back this winter. The apples are so terrible even the squirrels won't touch it. 

Auction week

When I see these  type of cabinets pop up for auction, I just know it's going to come home with me. Because of the high catalog number, I had hopes there wouldn't be too much interest in it.  Right after I finished inspecting it, another group of newbies to the auction started checking it out. over hearing she was willing to pay $300 for it, I had to do a lot of soul searching if I should really stretch my budget and just go for it. I ended up paying over $525.00, that includes the auction fees which is full retail. You know me and I hate to pay full retail for anything!  At some point I will sell it off but for now it's on my work table. 

The top drawers can hold 12X12 paper which I found interesting. Not sure what that would have been used for back in the day.