Not doing much this week. Just pulling and digging up green onions/wild garlic in the yard ( Read more... )

We live in an older, traditional neighborhood so I know the front yard needs to have to traditional green turf and neat landscape. We are trying to keep a clear view outside the windows with low-growing shrubs and plants like heather and dwarf conifers. We'd like to add a few more large rocks to those arrangements ( Read more... )

Perhaps the termites in the planter will be washed away by gulley-washer of a storm that is forecast to blow through here for the next 48 hours. MonsterMustDie dug out the area around the lost plant and we have only seen one or two isolated termites since then - and we have not lost any more plants.

Meanwhile, the weather service predicts that the ( Read more... )

John came home from work today and was inspecting and weeding his planter in the back yard while I watched through the kitchen window. He pulled something out of the box and started inspecting it carefully and knocking dirt off the bottom and looking more closely at it. I came outside to see what was going on. “What kind of bug is this?” he said, ( Read more... )

As it turns out, I did get a bit of activity last week. Started with having a photo gig fall through that was immediately replaced by two all-night extras gigs that paid more. Followed that with one entire day spent mostly sleeping. Housemate said he was starting to become concerned about my 24-hour nap after the 48-hours of activity. I was kinda ( Read more... )

Spent most of today traveling to Pell City, AL to visit monstermustdie 's mother and cousin, stopping at several antique malls on the way there. Nearly every place we stopped had a BBQ grill smoking outside, putting Mr. Monster in the mood for pork.  So we took his mom to WallMart and then out to lunch at Golden Rule where I had the chicken lunch special ( ( Read more... )

Still looking for work. This week has been fruitless ( Read more... )

The forecast today promises sun and slightly warmer weather. For me, that makes it a good afternoon to work on removing more of the rampant English ivy from trees around the house. Still to early to do much serious gardening but we're close... very close ( Read more... )

We are finding that certain plants do better in different parts of our yard. The peas are growing out of control in the original plot that tomatoes and eggplants failed miserably in last year. The tomatoes in the new planter seem to be doing much better than the plants we had last year but the peas behind those new tomato plants in the same planter ( Read more... )

I now know what the yellow flower on the fence in back of the house is, thanks to Finslippy. It is Kerria japonica "pleniflora" (also comes in a "single bloom" variety which looks more like it's common name "Japanese Rose"). And now I have to give Monster the satisfaction of knowing he was right - it's not a wild flower but something planted there ( Read more... )