Tag: plants

Day #81 & #82

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

Donny rarely takes vacation days. Even when he does he gets many phone calls and more often than not he has to go back into work at least for a few hours. This week he took Monday – Friday off. We had decided that we really needed to work on the yard, especially the backyard. That’s why these two days are one post.

On Monday I decided to weed the front beds and around the gardens. Luckily when I started it was early and the weather hadn’t gotten to unbearably hot. I still sweat a bit and our cat Monkey loves to rub against me and meow for pets when I’m weeding. Every. Single. Time.

While I was weeding I noticed that the house needed to be washed down. Every north facing house has a mildew problem when it rains and then gets hot and humid. Nothing that a little soap, water and elbow grease can’t fix.

I only have to do it a few times a year, thank goodness.

I had an audience while I was scrubbing.

One thing about Donny and me is that we can’t resist running some errands. We had to go to Walmart for a few essentials and found something that makes me so happy.

We had the carpet type floor mats that the dead grass just clung to for dear life. You can see the dead grass I still need to vacuum out. The blue is the same color as the inside trim on the seats.

I had been desperately needing some new gardening gloves since mine were getting holes in the fingers. Scored these on clearance for a buck.

Tuesday morning I started on the backyard. If you haven’t heard of Poke Weeds you are lucky. They have these berries that stain everything magenta and are poisonous. Well, we had a whole orchard of these beauties that we had to dig up.

I also found out, the hard way, that we had devil vines. That’s just what we named them because they look like harmless ivy vines but they have the most wicked thorns. I have scratches all over me.

With my trusty pick ax we got it all done.

While Donny was carrying all of our weeds to the front I started weeding this area. I only found one snake, it was a smallish grass snake.

Now we can start working on fixing the shed.

It was such a productive day.

Now for the sad news. We had been planning to go away for a couple of days either back to Lone Star or to this cabin I found near Tyler. Something held up back from making reservations and it’s a good thing we didn’t because one of Donny’s sales guys had to quit due to medical reasons. So, guess who goes back to work tomorrow? Which means he probably won’t even get his Thursday and Friday off. I’m trying to show some grace, but sometimes I have to dig deep to find it. It’s not Donny’s fault and he’s just as disappointed as I am.

But we did find this cool wind chime lol

Day #40 – Sprucin’ It Up

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I had a few things on my to-do list today that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to but they needed to get done. I needed to mow first and because it was 79 degrees at 9 am this morning the morning glories were still open. Unfortunately the humidity was at 73.

I knew I needed to start laying the pavers. First I needed to paint them. I would have loved to do a bright color, but the only paint I had enough of was the warm cinnamon. That works.

Next I had to lay them out and dig out the rest of the grass and dirt to try and get them as level as I could.

This took quite a while, but it was so satisfying when it was finally finished.

I brought some rocks from the backyard to the front to just add that little touch to the all gravel part.

Nothing ever grows in the small pots I have hanging by our front door. Since we’ve had some good luck with wandering Jew I decided to try them there.

While I was planting those I noticed our house numbers were looking a bit faded. Since our house is old I didn’t want to completely take them off because who knows If I could even get them back on so I just used a black sharpie.

So much better.

The last thing I had on my list was to pull out the dying cucumber vine, stake up the tomatoes and plant the pumpkins sprouts and marigold seeds.

See the little cat on the left? That’s Monkey and every time I’m pulling weeds or planting anything, mainly when I’m a sweaty mess, she has to come and rub all over me.

I hope the cloches keep the pumpkin sprouts safe until they are bigger. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Day #2 – Side Garden

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I accidentally woke up at 5 am. I made coffee and waited for the sun to come up.

When I went to let the chickens out I noticed our Morning Glories are blooming.

Since this is day 2 of day 100 doing what needs to be done to make my life better, I started weeding the front beds. We have 2 gardens. We consider the one in the front mine and the side one Donny’s although they are my plants in it.

Donny has been busy, busy, busy at work. That means long hours and getting home every day after 7. So I felt it was up to me to get the side gardens in shape. Plus I googled when to plant pumpkins in our zone and we need to have them in the ground by July. I have no idea where we are going to plant them because they take a LOT of room. This is what I started with.

Such a weedy mess.

After almost 4 hours this was the result.

I twisted dragged the hydrangeas to the front because they were burning up where they were. I moved all of the random sunflowers Donny planted, some of my avocados and plants that didn’t have a home where the hydrangeas were.

I weeded the enclosed garden, but once plants start bearing vegetables they get big and take over. I feel like I accomplished so much today that wasn’t on my normal to-do list. That side garden is looking so much better. There’s still a lot of work to be done in both the front and back, but I feel if I can work on it everyday it will get done.

There was no rain in the forecast at all so I was surprised when the dark clouds blew in and it started pouring. I’m glad it did because it cooled everything off and filled up our rain barrel. I’d used quite a bit of the water in the gardens.

Because I cannot get over how patient O’Malley is with Ruth:

She’s a little stinker.

Let’s see what Day 3 brings.

Dig In the Dirt

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

There’s been a task that I have been putting off for a while. My plants were getting too big for some pots and the pothos was getting very leggy and not looking its best. Here are what the wall pots looked like before. I had to go back to find a picture, but the peace Lily was just so overgrown and the purple jew was just past its prime.

We had to run to Home Depot to pick up some more potting soil and I found the cutest little indoor plant to replace the purple jew. I was able to separate the peace Lily and replant it in two bigger pots and still have some for the wall.

The peace lilies are in shock right now, but should perk up in a few days.

I had to give the pothos a major trim.

Since they are so easy to grow, I saved the good parts of the vines and planted them around the house. Hopefully they’ll take. It’s rare that they don’t, but we’ll see. It looks so much healthier now. I wish that I could plant it in a smaller pot, but it’s already so well established I’m afraid that it wouldn’t like it.

And y’all, it was HOT outside today. I was sweating, like pouring down my face sweat. It was only 85, so I can only imagine what the actually summer temps are going to be like. There was one saving grace. It’s what help get me through when all of Longview lost power during the heat wave of the summer. Those were the longest days ever, but this helped so much.

Best flavor ever, Tigers Blood. It’s just coconut strawberry, but it’s SO good! Thanks Zippy J’s!