PROPERTY BOARDER BED ALMOST COMPLETE

Well we have been building garden bed again. This was a continuation of the bed, we showed in an earlier post, along the rear property line of our place. We used some Tan Oak logs from trees we had to have removed anyway, for the sides of the bed and the step up in back.

This picture you will recognize as the first part of this bed we were working on before. We do have another log added to make the transition step down from the high bank in back. You can reference the pile of wood chips at the back of the top picture.



And as you can see the chip pile is barely in the foreground in this picture. Pretty much all that is left is to plant trees, shrubs, and flowers lots and lots of flowers.

COLLEGE GRADUATE

Janice and I drove up to Eugene yesterday, for the very happy occasion of our youngest son's graduation from Lane Community College with an Associate of Science Degree in Computer Networking.

 I could not believe just how many people were there, made me a bit nervous!

 Congratulations Jon, your future will be brighter because of your perseverance.

You showed your children how it is done, I think they are pretty proud of their dad.

Saying Goodbye

Well today was one of the hardest I have had in a long time. Don and I had decided that we needed to fined new homes for our kids.

 Dancer and Flash are spending the last few minutes in the paddock while we are getting their stuff together. Saddles, tack and of course their toys.

 

 Flash was the brave one and went first. He was a little bit hesitant at first but only for a few seconds. He wasn't sure what was going on.

It didn't take very long and he went right in. He is such a brave boy.

 Next it was Dancer's turn. She too didn't know what was going on.

 I, of course, had to give her one last hug before getting her loaded.

 I think you can see the sadness in her eyes below. That is why you can't see my face.

 Dancer was such a good girl. She jumped right in the trailer with no hesitation at all.
Below you can see the sadness in Flashes eyes. It was a sad day for all of us except the people who got them. They were very happy and they should be, they got two very good horses.

 Here we were just tying up Dancer and Don was giving her a pat on the butt goodbye.

 Of course I couldn't get the lead tied so Don had to do it for me. I think it was a brain fart, didn't want to really let her go. We had built such a good bond with each other.

 But we got them loaded and the people also got the cart that we were going to have Flash trained to pull. The people who got the horses were interested in the cart also and she has six kids that can help with the training.

I had to take this last picture for a goodbye. Will miss them terribly, but I think it is for the best for them, although you couldn't tell by me right now.

ENJOYABLE DAY

Today was a very nice day here, sun shining, helped the neighbor move a tree for him to use as a side on a garden bed, a little on the cool side with a slight breeze blowing, but all in all a very enjoyable day. This first picture is of some flowers from bulbs that came out of my deceased mother's yard. They are related to the hyacinth, but I find the way they bloom interesting, They send up a spear, and then the blooms open from the bottom to the top over a span of time.

 This second is of some of the Allium blooms from bulbs my cousin sent me. I love these things the ball of flowers is as high as my head.

 I had to take this one to show my cousin that indeed there are six not just four blooms.

 I also liked this photo as it has the Calla Lilly's to the forefront, then on the lattice some Jasmine, going down to an azalea in bloom, and at the bottom of what I wanted to capture, a Viburnum Meta-file. 

 I strolled down the upper drive and the Torch Lilly's caught my eye. In this shot I tried to line up the Red Hot pokers, then some red flowering currents in back and farther along.

 This shot is still on the upper drive, I liked it because the Filberts framed the Viburnum Mete-file very well.



This last shot I came closer for, shows an Azalea about to burst bloom in front of the Mete-file.

 

New Garden

Well do you remember the Oak trees that we had cut down a while back. Don and a young man we hired for the day moved them up into the driveway for use. We did use a couple of them for a new garden bed along the back side of the driveway which backs up to the forest.

He moved them into place and then loaded the bed up with compost. I spent the day moving the compost around in the bed.

Then I dug the Echinacea flowers up from a shady location because they weren't doing very well there and transplanted them into this new garden bed that gets a bit more sunshine.

 I think everything is going to do very well now and I really like the way it turned out.

This is a different view of the garden. Looks good and ready to start producing stuff for us. I am going to plant some cabbage in this garden and see how it does this year.

The figs are doing really well this year. This is the most figs we have had on this tree yet. It is still a young tree.

My potatoes are doing really well also. I sure like the new 4x4 beds we put in last year. Sure makes room for more growing. We put wire mesh under these beds to keep the rabbits, voles and moles from getting the potatoes.

 I had to take a picture of the Wisteria because it is blooming so nice now.

 The top picture is a top view of the Viburnum Metafile plant that I had shown you in an earlier post.

 My peonies are getting ready to bloom. I put one strand of twine around them in hopes of helping to hold the blooms up because they are so big that the stems can't hold them up by themselves. I hope one strand will be enough.

 Last but not least I had to share a picture of my Azalea now blooming. I love the flowers around my yard and it is so nice when you can hear and see the bees working.

Almost Complete

 We finally got the wings to the gate that was installed about a month ago. Don and I worked on them for a couple of days. Was a bit of a challenge but we did it. I think it looks great. Now we need to purchase the gate opener for it and have it installed if possible.

 We planted a couple of native ferns on the outside of the gate and it really set it off. We have some plants in the yard that we will be moving also. Inside the gate next to the wings we will be building a triangle shape raised bed and we will be planting a Wigalia on each side next to the wings and in front of those we have some Agapanthas that will go in. They bloom at different times so I think it will look really nice. Will take more pictures as we proceed.

The picture above are some Carnealian Cherry (Dogwoods) that were planted in some tiles that we had put in the yard years ago. We decided to move them into the pasture where the Oak trees were that we had fallen because they were getting bad at the bottom. As you can see by the gate, one fell this last winter and really did some damage. Gonna use the Oak trees for raised beds in a different part of the yard. The goats really like the Dogwood so we had to do something to protect the trunks from their little mouths. That is why the trees look like they have stripes on the trunks.

 This picture is one of the tiles that one of the Dogwood trees was planted in. When we took out the tree we moved the Davidii in. We had this planted in the center garden in the yard. It looks good here and gave me more gardening space. I can always use more garden space. Means more home grown food.

 I did get some of my garden planted today also. This is the corn I had started in the greenhouse. I did that last year and it really extended my growing season for corn. We don't get a lot of hot weather here for as long as the corn needs it to grow and develop. I also planted some sunflowers with the corn and some squash plants along the front edge.

I had to take a picture of the Viburnum Metafile in full bloom. I really like it. It is such a different plant. I am not sure how tall it will get, but if it reaches the deck it won't hurt my feelings. In the back ground you can almost see the Wisteria coming to life. It will be in full bloom soon. Our bees are soooooo happy....

MOWING THE YARD

Today was day three that Janice has been down visiting family in Lodi, and it took three hours to do my morning chores today. Of Course I had to scrub out all of the animals water containers.

 My day to mow the yard, it's a tough life, but having horses helps.

Once they start wondering into other parts of the yard I know they have grazed about all they want and I can give them evening grain and they are done for the night.

Poppin

So we finally got the spring snow that we usually get this time of year. It never seems to fail, even though we didn't have any snow all winter long we get April snows. So I had to take a picture.

As you can see it was only a sciff, but snow none the less. That is OK, we can use it and it only stayed for about an hour. We really needed the snow up on top of the mountain.

The Crocus are blooming really nice now. The yellow crocus bloomed early so I didn't get them in the picture. The two little trees next to the crocus are olive trees and we hope to get them planted soon. Don't know if they will grow here but what the heck, why not try...right?

The Asian pears are really putting on the pears, but we shall see how many of them actually stay. Hopefully the bees did their job and got it pollinated in time before we got the rain.

Don grafted the Spartan tree that was having a hard time producing good fruit. We have a beautiful Honeycrisp tree that has wonderful apples so he decided to make a Honeycrisp tree out of the Spartan tree. Hopefully it will take off and grow.

The branches that he grafted in look like they are trying to grow which is a positive for us and from what I can see it looks like all the branches may take off. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Lithadora is in full bloom now and I just love the way it looks on the block wall down the driveway. The bumble bees really love this stuff and I really like having the bumble bees around. Just more pollinators.

This is a peach tree the started from our compost pile. Don found it growing in the compost and so he re-potted it in a small pot to see if we could get it to grow. It started to grow beautifully and so we planted it in the yard about two years ago, The poor thing had been eaten by deer so much that I was beginning to wonder if it was going to make it. I put a fence around it last year and it took off. If you look really hard you can see the first peach,,,,ever. It is the little bitty white spot in the branch all by it self. I am so excited.

While I was taking pictures the babies came out to enjoy the sun. They are growing up so fast.

I think the little buckling has doubled his size already. He is also very strong.

They can be a handful for the momma's. This is Brownie with the three of them and as you can see they are doing very well.

The horses were enjoying the pasture also. They really like to be out of the paddock. Although I did find Flash leaning on the fence and pressuring it to get to the grass on the other side. You know that the grass is always greener on the other side
....

The bees were also out and about all day. I just love to see them working. I really need to get into the bee yard and do some grass trimming. We did get the Escalonia pruned back away from the hives and got them in the ground to start for other places on the property.

Here you can see that the babies really like the hill side. What fun to run up and down and make momma's worry

The fig trees are loaded with figs. Hopefully they will get enough warm weather to ripen. I like figs.

They are growing up from the bottom so Don wanted to experiment and see if we could get more trees so we notched the bottom of the little trees and put rooting hormone on and then pine shavings that had been soaked in water around the base to protect them. If they root we will have about four more trees.

The one tree in this picture is pretty good size already. Hope it works, I would like to have more fig trees. I have a recipe for fig bars in my recipe folder on this site that I haven't really had a chance to try yet. Maybe this year.

And last but not least the Japanese Wisteria is just loaded with blossoms. I can't wait for it to bloom the flowers are sooooo fragrant.

Well that is it for now. Hope your enjoyed the tour. Hope you all have a great day....