Plants in the Woods

I love walking through the wooded area on our property during each season to see what has changed. It turns out spring brings it's own uniquely beautiful plants and blooms. I love those curled up ferns...I don't think I've ever noticed ferns in that stage before. Around here spring feels more like three seasons that just one, there are so many stages to spring. Maybe it's the fact that winter is the most difficult Pacific Northwest season for me to get through that makes spring so refreshing. I've always said that summer is my most favorite time of year, but I may have to amend that statement...maybe.

Goodbye April

Goodbye April, thank you for being so beautiful and so mild this year.

Your dramatic skies took my breath away.

Your rainy days were faithfully followed by sunny days, my plants grew because of this.

Thank you.

See you again next year.

Getting It All Stained For Summer

Over last weekend, we had the kind of gorgeous spring weather that inspires thoughts of summer and spending more time outside. It's also the kind of weather that makes you look around outside and think of the projects that need to get done. One of my favorite gifts ever from the husband is the porch swing he bought me for my birthday a couple of years ago when I turned 30. It is a favorite place for us to sit, talk and enjoy the view. It's taken on some weathering in that time, but after a fresh coat of stain, it looks as good (or better) than new.

The husband has had the bench in the picture below since the early 90's, it was a gift from his parents. Though it's been through quite a bit of weathering, the husband was able to get the years of yuck factor off of it with sanding. Then I put a nice thick coat of redwood tinted stain on it last weekend...I like how it turned out! My garden is slowly coming together, now I have a classy bench to sit on while I watch all of my lovely plants grow! It's a good feeling to renew something you already have so you can enjoy it.Because the stain was already out and the brush was already wet, I figured it was also time to stain the two adirondack rockers that the husband made last summer. (The picture above shows one chair stained and the other still in raw wood - we put the chairs on planks so we'd be able to stain the bottom a bit more easily.) We'll be using the chairs on the upstairs deck that is off of our master bedroom. Up until now we haven't had any permanent furniture there. I'm looking forward to spending more time up there this summer. I've been thinking about getting some pillows made for those chairs to maximize the cozy, comfort possibilities...I can already picture enjoying a book and a cup of tea or coffee out there.

Bleeding Heart

We've got a big project happening on our property right now. It is going to involve tearing up some ground on the north side of our house. This is something that has had me thinking lately about what I'd like to do in those areas, as far as plantings go, once the dust settles and everything is back in place. Because it is north facing, there isn't much direct sunlight during the day at any point in the year. Also, I don't want to do anything too high maintenance, the less work the better. So I've been thinking about shade loving perrenials. In particular, I've recently been drawn to bleeding heart plants. They are so very elegant. I was very excited to find the gorgeous plant above last weekend when I happened into a local nursery...it's gorgeous and just what I wanted. Another bonus, it was half the price of bleeding heart plants of the same size that I have seen elsewhere. Perfect! It's going to be at least a month or two until I can put it in the ground...but I'm looking forward to seeing it bloom year after year!

Beauty in the Oddest Places

Yup, the day has come where I am showing pictures of my dirty dishes on my blog, but I couldn't help myself as the morning light came through the window the color of these bowls drwe me in. The bowls are recent additions to my dish collection from Anthropologie. They come in the loveliest colors. I swear they make food more enjoyable.

Terrariums

After scouting out terrariums on a few blogs for some time now (this one is my favorite), I finally got around to making my own. I used succulents that I found at a lovely store in Seattle, Ravenna Gardens. The first layer in each terrarium was pea gravel, the next layer is soil with the succulent tucked in to cover it's roots, the top layer is pea gravel tucked around the succulents themselves. The succulent in the picture above has the name "Hens and Chicks" - I have to admit that it was the name that made me chose this particular succulant over another.

There's something about a terrarium, it's a tiny little world...

Be back soon!

Weeds: It worked!

I posted last weekend about the weed spray that I had mixed up based on an "organic" recipe we got from our local dirt yard bulletin board. I'm excited to say that it worked. I spent about 15 minutes walking around and spraying the weeds that have popped up on my garden paths. The garden smelled strongly of vinegar for a few hours after I'd sprayed (something I can live with - I'd rather breath vinegar than unknown chemicals). But two days after spraying the weed killer, this is what the weeds looked like...brown, dried out, easy to pull out of the gravel. I've found my go-to solution for weeds.

Calendula: Weird Seeds

A packet of calendula seeds was mine for free recently because I purchased a couple of other Thompson and Morgan seed packets. I probably never would have picked it out normally, but I'm up for trying to grow new things. It's especially fun given that there is more than enough space to spread out.

The seeds struck me as interesting...they look more like a dried up little insect than a seed. We'll see soon how it turns out, everything is germinating very quickly in the greenhouse these days. The temperature and humidity are apparently doing the trick.

Seed Sprouts!

I had to share my sweet little little sprouts. I can't get over how quickly everything starts in the greenhouse...the warm humid environment is to thank for all of this lovely growth. It is going to be time to transplant much sooner than I anticipated!

Weeds

I love my garden. I love the fact that I have raised beds to grow my veggies in. I love the fact that between those raised beds I have gravel paths so that when I water my veggies, I don't end up having to walk on muddy paths. Even though those paths were all lined with landscaping fabric before the gravel was spread on them, it seems that it is still possible for weeds to make their home on my paths. So I decided to try a recipe for an "organic" weed killer to spray out the invaders. The recipe was posted on a bulletin board at the yard where we have purchased our gravel and dirt. Hopefully it works, we'll see!

First Time Free Rangers

Ten little Buff chicks got to try free-ranging for the first time yesterday. They didn't stay out for very long, maybe about 20 minutes and they were back in the coop while the four big hens stayed out longer. They stuck close to the door of the coop and the fence that runs along the garden. They also stuck together in a group, no straying away alone. But they seemed to enjoy scratching around for bugs and pulling strands of grass out of the ground. For now, I think the little ones aren't quite ready for the big world of the orchard, which is alright, I don't think I'm really ready for them to be all grown up yet.

Plantin' Peas

Because we've expanded the garden so much this year with the new raised beds and my new greenhouse "The Pod", there has been quite a bit of rearranging and adjusting. There are still paths that need gravel, a used bench I need to stain and move out there, a flower bed that will be built around the Pod. But even with the huge to-do list, the encouraging part is that there are so many things that have moved over to the done list. One of those items was moving my pea trellis from one side to the opposite. Luckily the husband volunteered to place it in the ground a few weeks back (I hate using the hand post-hole digger). Yesterday I put a bit more time into that area, putting landscaping fabric on the ground and mounding up dirt. I also collected rocks from all over our property to make a nice border for the area. The last touch for the day was putting the pea seeds into the ground. One of the things I love about growing peas is how low maintenance they are. For the past few years I've literally put the seeds in the ground and walked away...as long as the peas are in the path of rain or watering, they grow easily. Love it!

Little Critters Hanging Out

The spring weather we've been having - sun, rain, sun, rain - has brought a few critters around to visit. Inside one of the birdhouses I keep by the front door (which were made by the husband last summer)...
...this cute little tree frog decided to spend an afternoon.

One of the things I have noticed as a new comer to the Pacific Northwest was how few snails there are...even with all the rain we have. So I had to get a picture of this cute little guy.

The rain also brought this waddling pair to spend a couple of days floating around and munching on worms and bugs in a big puddle.

By the way, Happy Earth Day (one day late)!

No Tiptoeing This Year...

...but at least I got to see the tulip fields. The sight is pretty stunning.
Beyond the tulips just being beautiful, there's also something that is just amazing about such a large quantity of bright color, in such deep brilliance, with blue skies and puffy white clouds as a back drop.
Usually when I see stunning landscapes, the main color is green...

...but these tulip fields, with their gorgeous colors blow me away. It's almost too much for the eyes.

I'm not the only one who feels this way...the traffic around the tulip fields

at this time of year can be horrendous, especially on a sunny weekend day.

The new job that I've taken a couple of days a week is right on the tulip tourist route,

so during my commute, I had no choice but to stop and "smell the tulips" so to speak.

It was mildly annoying to have my commute time double, but really,

there are worse things in life than driving through tulip country!

This Week...

The husband and I went on our annual date to see the Oakland A's play the Seattle Mariners...it's become an annual tradition for us. We have lots of fun cheering against each other's teams, razzing your mate can be fun!We sometimes get tickets for a cafe in the stadium...you eat overlooking the game from right field and your ticket includes a voucher for food, it's pretty cool.

We noticed this time that the cafe has switched to compostable cups...the husband told me that the company, Cedar Grove, that makes the cups is the same company that makes and distributes the vegetable mix soil that we used to fill our raised beds. It was kind of a cool full circle moment for us.

By the way, my team lost...so I was glad that we didn't make a bet on the game outcome this year.

I hope you're having a great weekend, I'll be back soon!

Sweet Buffs

In the midst of talking about integrating my flocks, creating chicken distractions, and the *possible* discovery of a rooster amoung us, I haven't said how much I really like my new chickens.

It has been fun to watch them discover new foods like worms, greens and wild bird seed. It's cool to see them learn to use their wings to fly - even short distances. It was kind of funny watching them learn to walk down the chicken ramp, they are very cautious at first, but then they figure out that there are slats for their feet to grab onto and they start going up and down more quickly and confidently.

This group of chicks has mostly been a joy because they are so good natured. They are not at all skittish like my group last year was. This group of chicks loves to be petted. They are friendly and curious. The little girl in the picture above was determined to play with my camera strap while I was taking pictures...I hope that these chicks can keep living up to their Buff Orpington "reputation" of being one of the more friendly chicken breeds. They make it easy to like them.