Transformation

This is the before shot of the house. That sickly yellow lawn full of tall fescue was keeping me up nights, it bothered me so much. Jeff and I have always put a high priority on having, not just a good lawn-the best lawn on the block.

This lawn was only a year old, but it was a juvenile delinquent! It not only wasn't a good lawn, it wasn't fit for pasture! This black topsoil was supposed to top dress the whole project.
It didn't come close.

The excavater found more topsoil and had five of these semi-trucks brought in!

I wish I could get me one of these. This little Bobcat is wonderful and I need it around. I know Kerri's hubby has one, but we paid this guy $100/hour to spread this stuff....

This man was so nice, Jeff had to work that morning, so he helped me carry my brand new beautiful raised beds out to their spots. Then, (can you see the fancy equipment??)
He used his lazar level to get them just right! It took a long time for us to get this far. Right after we got them in place, Jeff came home with burgers and fries!! I am very spoiled by him!

We had a long way to go, after that.
That was Saturday. I spent every hour out there until church on Saturday night. Then, I started the new job on Sunday. On Monday, I did the research and decided which seed I wanted. I knew I wanted bluegrass, but it takes sooo long to germinate. Since we had invested a lot in the soil, I wanted to give it justice, you know? Make it worth it!
So....
I went to the professional turf guys in the little farm town down the road. They install for the major leagues and the parks. I talked at length with them, learned a lot and brought home $600 worth of premium grass seed and fertilizer.
My husband was freaking out when I told him how much I spent.....

But, he recovered and took the next day off of work and rented a power seeder, sometimes called a slit seeder.
***not my husband, not my yard***

Well, the thing broke within an hour. So, he took it back, waited for them to fix it. An hour later, they told him they couldn't fix it. All the while, three days of slow steady rain is coming in from the west. He has to finish before the rain starts!! That seed would really be given a great start if it would rain after it was down!
He ran out to the next biggest town, DeKalb, and rented one there. It took two hours to get it back, and he worked like a crazy man!! To power seed correctly, you go east to west, then diagonally across the whole thing. This machine is a beast to handle, but Jeff made it look like he was mowing the lawn!!

***not my husband, not my lawn***

Just as the first drops began to fall, Jeff finished. It has rained slowly and politely, ever since that evening. All those expensive little seeds are tucked into their expensive blanket now!
We are expecting sunshine and 70's for the next week.
That grass will be so good, it will make me jump for joy!!
***enlarged for texture***

Really cute!!

When we moved to Illinois last year, my 12 year old daughter was terribly lonely for her Memphis friends...
I let her adopt a dog from FluffyButts Rescue. Soon after, I would find the Pooh stuck up on furniture where Cass had put her and forgotten about her. After a while, the Pooh and I became very close and now she is my dog!
Well, I stayed home for a year with My Little Pooh and she goes everywhere with me. She is having a hard time adjusting to the new way-with me at work and Pooh in my bathroom!
(She might be small, but she still knows how to tip over garbage and pee on the hardwood!!)
The bathroom is 8x10, so it's not like she's suffering, I leave the sports talk radio on for her and she listens to the Cubs!!
This how Cass found her the other day....

She climbed up onto the rolled up towels on this small baker's rack!!

She has a little bed, her food and water, but she decided she likes the loft bed, better!!! As they say in Memphis, She be fixin to take a break!!

Tablescapes

Seaside themed. Giant Fibre Optic grass growing in the middle!!

Beach theme. Like you can even see it??


Not a tablescape, this exhibit is called "Living Stones".
I just don't get into this kind of thing...

The bread table from our cruise!!

This pic was taken by Jeff, it's the midnight buffet
on our cruise-by midnight, I was so seasick
that I never made it down there!!

In my new cedar garden beds, I have planted salad bowl lettuce and cabernet lettuce. The soil in the beds themselves is hard as a rock, but I know with a little high nitrogen fertilizer, I will be eating baby lettuce salads in a few weeks!!

I have just one minute....I have to leave for work, soon!

Things are so busy around here, the backyard does NOT look like that, anymore!
I love my job, but my back is aching! (If you have never tried those heat therapy back wraps, they work!!)
Thanks to all my friends who have emailed me, worried and wishing me luck with my new job!
I think about you and will post pictures of the new yard and all the work going on, soon!

Why didn't somebody tell me???

These shrubs look terrible in front of my south bed...I mean, I looked at this
the other day and I wanted to throw a sheet over the whole thing, it looks so
bad to me...That glaring yellow color next to the putty colored house just clashes
in the worst way.

This is my pitiful perennial bed. Just pitiful. It, too, makes me want to vomit. I cannot take this!!


I moved those sorry glaring yellow globe shrubs to the corners of the perennial
bed. I really worked this bed over, adding lots of Cockadoodle Doo and beneficial
microbes. Pretty soon, it's gonna look like this:

Do you think the tower is over the top???

I start my new job tomorrow!!

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech ...

-- Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist

Sometimes we ask ourselves why??!! Why would someone do something like that??! It is then, in the midst of our troubles and weakness that God is magnified.

The Prayer of St Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred . . . let me sow love
Where there is injury . . . pardon
Where there is doubt . . . faith
Where there is despair . . .hope
Where there is darkness . . . light
Where there is sadness . . .joy
Divine Master,
grant that i may not so much seek
To be consoled . . .as to console
To be understood . . .as to understand,
To be loved . . . as to love
For it is in giving . . .that we receive,
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned,
It is in dying . . .that we are born to eternal life

Here's Pooh. Can you tell it's windy? Hold on, Pooh!

Here's Schatz. Still windy, but this one's ready for anything, anytime. Today
Schatz chased a big black cat away from the bluebird house. Good girl!!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I have not participated in this, yet, because I never had a bloom on the 15th. Today was my lucky day! Garden blooms! Thanks to Carol for hosting this event!

I have no idea what this is.

White crocus

Pachysandra!

Mowed the lawn for the first time, today. I am still waiting for the contractor with the black dirt to come, and then the contractor with the black dirt spreader....I waited all year, last year, and now I am waiting for other people, again...I just want to garden in my yard. It just won't happen until it's too late again, I am afraid.

I also removed the grass around 2 of the 5 spruce trees. You just can't get that tractor under the branches without breaking them. If you lean down to pick up the branches, you can't hold the lawn mower. I will remove the grass around the drip line and plant some of the small lilies around them, or maybe daylily...

I need help!!! I am so frustrated!!
I cannot remember the name of a tree/plant that I want!!


I took a garden walk in Racine Wisconsin, several years ago. In a yard, I saw what I thought was a small dogwood. When I walked up to it, I saw it had large thorns on it....
It could be perennial, but I thought she said it was a tree, a rather weedy tree, but the name started with an A.

Does anybody out there in Bloggerland know the tree I want??!!!

edit:figured it out and never mind!! It's on the national list of invasives and it's extremely expensive. Normally those two don't work out together, but it must be some sort of grafted invasive. It's Japanese Angelica tree, or Aralia Elata. I'd rather have the dogwood or fringe tree.

"Nearly all of South Carolina's peach crop, Kentucky's peaches, apples, and pecans have been destroyed by the late freeze. Georgia's peach crop has been destroyed, for the most part."

All Things Considered, April 12, 2007

A farmer talked about his entire 25 acre peach crop being blackened and dead from the frost on this program, yesterday. He was going to get a job at Home Depot, to support his family, to supplement the income loss. It seems heartless to complain about the snow and the cold, when this poor man's livelihood is gone, this year because of it.

A benefit from having such a late dip in temperatures after the warm up in March is the effect it has on insects...I read reports of the last frost and snow killing fire ants in Tennesee and mosquitoes, here in the Northern states. They had already been out laying eggs in puddles in March. This last blast surely made sitting outside in August a little bit nicer.

Some more good news-the bluebirds were out good and early, this morning!! They made it thru and the temps will steadily rise over the next week. I cannot stand those mealworms, I have to pour them in a cup to take out to the birds. Not Jeff! He just pours some in his hand, drops them in the feeder and goes off to work. UGH!!!
Speaking of the birds, I better go check on them. It's going down to 32° tonite...

Just hang on a few more nights....

In her latest post, Carol mentioned the obsessive nature of a gardener. I don't know about you, but I have to admit to being a tad obsessive, at times.
My latest is not a plant or my compost or even my new cedar beds.

It's the bluebirds in my backyard. The weather, turning so cold and miserable, has been inconvienent to us. It is deadly to the migrating birds. My bluebirds have a nest in their box, (if you look real close, it's behind them, in the trees!), and we hope they have laid eggs.

They don't do well in the cold and worse, the cold snap, has killed the emerging insect population. It might do us some good, but the poor bluebirds need the insects!!

So, Jeff and I have taken to feeding them. Every morning and every night, we take mealworms out to their special feeder. As a matter of fact, I take worms out there, every time I see them sitting on that feeder. They have me trained, like that!
(we got the worms online. a little disconcerting to know there are 15,000 of them in my crisper drawer. I know it's gross, but they have to keep cool or they will pupate. GROSS!)

Tonite, it's supposed to get into the 20's. I have fed the birds 3 times, already today. I worry about their little bodies, huddled together, trying to stay warm. The wind has been so ferocious at night. I lay in bed and think of the little birds.
Right now, the wind is blowing steady at 15 mph. That's windy!! Especially hard is that it drops the temp to a wind chill of 25°.
We are forecasted to get to the high 20's, tonite and tomorrow night, but then slowly coming around to the 40's at night.
I will keep the worms coming, just hang on a few more nights......

Give it your best shot, Winter!!

We were supposed to get four to six, and got about two that didn't- couldn't- stick!! The ground is too warm, here, for the snow to pile up!!!
I am so encouraged about that! It's our first winter back in the North after being gone about 15 years to Zones 6 and 8, Louisville and Memphis.

Delphiniums featured at the New England Flower Show

This beautiful weeping cherry could be seen all the
way across the expo center!

A closer view of the cherry!

I saw this evergreen featured ALOT!! I really liked it, much better than
some of the groundcover junipers which seem to die, from the middle-outward.
Right now, I have the Blue Chip Juniper in several places out front, but
I want to add some of this Gold Thread in front of the Black Beauty Sambucus I ordered!!

Black Beauty shown with Bonanza Gold Barberry

Funny thing about blogging...

At the flower show, the "new" thing for garden decor was tablescapes. Now, I don't scape my tables, I still have a lot of trouble getting everybody at the table, much less matching chargers to napkins. But Zoey loves to tablescape. So, I come across the first tablescape and it was stunning.
"Zoey would love this," I say under my breath. A lady next to me says, "My sister does this tablescaping, too!" She thought I was talking about my sister...

Now, I don't even really know Zoey. I am fairly sure that's not her real name, even! I think it's her black dress open bottle of wine alter-ego. But, here I am in Boston, Massachusetts, and I think of my blogger friend, Zoey and her tables!!


Has blogging affected your thinking??! Is it just me??