noah weather

friday was another rain day which was nice for our newly planted trees. when it wasn't raining pellets, it was solid mist. kind of put a stop to the yard improvement projects.

so since i had the urge to order things and i didn't want to work in the dark chilly garage or in the dark chilly basement, i worked on cupboards. one is the before and one the after thought it is really not all that clear which is which. i had everything out on the kitchen island, washed the shelves and did try to order things as they went back in.

now my sister can truly say, 'my sister changed everything around and i don't know where anything is.'

two old lady gardening

you ask your sister to ask her son and his wife, her ex, and her neighbor to help .... you take pictures and she holds the water hose while they dig and plant.

bird and cat

not much needs to be said. we bought a heated bird bath last winter for the birds. so far we have only seen one grackle use it ....and sam. we also have a bird feeder on the other corner of the deck. lots of birds come. the bird sitting on top is scolding sam on the deck. sam didn't pay any attention to what was being said. he was on his way to the house for a nap.

the egg story

while i was away from home my sister bought chickens...baby chicks. her granddaughter bought two chicks and her grandson bought to ducklings. mallards. so last weekend her two sons loaded a little chicken house on a trailer and tooled ...well it was probably more like inched down the road to the far end of the property. they were on interstate part of the time---the scary part is the trailer was not licensed(probably the tail lights were not working) and the chicken house was to wide to be legal. no red flags either. but they made it. there are posts dug for the chicken yard. after they get used to their new home the chickens will probably be allowed to run free part of the time. there is a garden just to the right of the chicken house. the flock will help keep down the bugs, but i think they really like tomatoes also. they put up a water tank next to the chicken house. it is about two feet high and about six feet across. it has a chain link enclosure around it now and they take the ducks out to it for a swim. they are so excited to be in the water.

in the small half of the house a barn swallow built a nest using blue and silver ribbons. quite fancy. but since the house moved and she didn't, she will have to build a new nest.

our chickens are going to lay white, blue, brown, and green shelled eggs.

mishmash

my nephew who is 40 something was over the other day and wound up playing with dennis. dennis must have been in a really good mood because he allowed himself to be dressed in a baby hat and one baby slipper.

he usually bites when people try do things like that.

i swear i turned that picture, and now i cannot seem to get it deleted. anyway we worked on the front lawn this sunday. it was worse than the sideways picture. this is after we added a rose bush and some columbine. the pictures are out of order... there is a picture after we put in the edging...as straight as two old ladies could do with rubber edging that had been in a curl for a year or maybe two. we put down newspapers then covered it with the mulch. both will dissolve into the soil. we will have to keep adding mulch of some kind.. i think there is a place in town where we can get some free. we ran out of mulch and ....i forgot ... we also put rock under the deck...we ran out of that also!.

we changed our snowflake for the winter welcome to a metal butterfly we found at pier 1. the rapid city journal today said that there are only two seasons in south dakota....winter and yard sale season. we decided that was about right. we are just going to have the two decors. flowers and butterfly for the yard sale season and the snowflake and fake pine trees (weighted with rocks) for the winter season.

we decided it was safe to plant the flower pots for the summer. we bought yellow pots at the end of last year's season for the porch. so now we are color coordinated. sort of. we are using white. yellow, and a touch of purple for the front porch. the deck is going to be restained a brown as are the adirondack chairs. the little fold up chairs might wind up lavendar and dark purple. we are doing red and orange in the back. we will have blues somewhere, just don't know where yet.

just to top things off the nursery called and said to come and pick up our bare root plants. we called my sis's sons to come and help dig the holes. actually both sons came and their sons...one just out of high school and the other in kindergarten. it was very nice the way they worked together to dig the holes. the older cousin is very patient with his young cousin.

all the cats had to come out and help us with our work. it was the first time out for cc. at least the first time she was allowed to be out and run around. her eyes were big as june bugs and her tail was continually twitching. she checked in with her master every once in awhile to make sure it was safe and consulted with dennis...about what i don't know; but they were talking.