Today broke cold and rainy, but by the time the Internet tech arrived about 10 am, it was trying to warm up a bit. The sun was TRYING hard to peek out and by the time we had gotten a NEW satellite to beam to, and everything was back to normal, it was almost 55 degrees out!

Yes, I said 55. Honestly, it’s so weird this year, just so weird.

After we had an hour or so fix and got a little lunch, the girls and I headed outside for a little fresh air and yard work.

We made a little pact. I asked the girls for a good solid hour of together chore time a day. It might be yard work, or like Sunday, we unpacked and sorted the storage room a bit and made it easier to find things in there. An hour with three eager hands is a good amount of time and leave no one bitter or overworked on solitary chores. We laugh and chat and work. Sometimes we get a little tuckered out, but hey, it’s only an hour.

Today we mowed the courtyard and immediate back yard and the side by the garage. We weeded a WHOLE yellow cart piled double high of evil rhubarb weed and pickers. (I know the evil rhubarb weed is not TRUE rhubarb, but it kinda looks like some sort of evil cabbage gone wild!) The girls helped me to plant the last of my iris and hostas from the Moby! Everything is in the ground now. And doing pretty darn good.

I kind of made a little detente in my mind about weeds. It would be folly to try and pull every weed on the homestead. There are just too many. Now regular mowing is going to keep the place in general looking much better than before. We all remember the before pictures…

But around the house, I have a plan. I am going to routinely pull the large offenders. The thistly picky weeds, the dandelions and the nettles and of course the evil rhubarb weed. But all the little stuff, that’s going to stay as long as it behaves. However, I am going to work on pulling out sections and replacing with nice sturdy perennials. Not teeny little ones, but the bigger full pot versions. I can’t afford a ton, but I can get a couple a week for awhile. Most of the nurseries and big box places have them on sale and I can usually get three for under $10. I will systematically start to crowd out the weeds while bringing in a little more color. And I can make sure that what I do recognize is not really a desirable perennial from the old times!

Slowly the thin spots will fill in and I won’t go nuts and pull everything out!

It’s a plan….

We planted a bunch of my elephant ear hostas in this wet and shady area with all the ferns. I think they will adore it. I’d like to paint the skirt wall of the screen porch next, we have some lovely tan and light brown mistints that might go nicely with the pale yellow siding of the house. Of course, where the screen is, a nice bright white to snap it all together. I think the re-screening will have to wait till a nice warm summer day, since we’ll have an all day project for that one. It will have to have all the nasty worn and ripped screening removed, the trim strips that hold it in and then painted and then re-screened! I think that will be a good job for friends and a BBQ and such!!!

Maggie’s Fire Henge.

She has gathered choice cement blocks from the property and has created a most awecious fire ring. We have tested it out and it was PERFECT! I think it only needs a few permanent log benches and it’s going to serve us very well.

We’ve started to divide our trash again, and I’m so glad. We had to stop for a bit, just to get through the whole move thing, and I’m glad we have figured out a good plan. We have a bin for recyclables, which I will take in to town once a week on practice day. We have a bin for burnables… mostly cardboard and papers. And then we have the compost bucket and the chicken bucket. (Of course, we don’t have chickens yet, but we have the bucket.) And then lastly, we have the wee bit of pure trash. My goal is that the pure trash gets down to just a wee bit every week. Something that I can just toss in the car for the weekly big city trip and drop off. I would be SUPER happy if it was every other week, or even once a month!!! I think we could achieve that.

I want to use the ash for the garden, since it is a great additive for various plants. And I hear you can actually make lye from it… hmmm….. might be a fun experiment! I do want to try and learn to make real soap, not just the melt and pour stuff. But in the meanwhile, I’m happy to finally be back to separating our trash and doing our best to not make very much that can’t be used around the homestead!

Our little creek ditch is full of water… and a lot of the property has little puddles and low spots all over the place. We have had SO much rain the last month, it’s crazy! I can’t really call it a creek, because it’s really just a ditch, but I am happy to pretend. It does run back to the low pond area. Which is currently, ah, a pond. Only about 6 inches deep, but hey, water is water. I hope we can come to some agreement in trade with a pond digger in the area… (crossing my fingers!) We have one on the hook and interested… stay tuned!

Well, all this and then finding out that Blue is only leaking a bit and not totally whacked… wow… another good day! And I’m actually FINALLY starting to feel a little less stiff and achy from falling! Shesh… it’s been a bit more than a week. I really strained my back leg muscle and all, that is for sure! I was able to mow and to man the shovels for the first time! Yah!!! I was careful not to over due it… Just did a bit and let the girls help when I started to feel a little out of it. Every day, a bit more. I think tomorrow, if it’s not really rainy, I’ll help mow in the dog yard. It’s getting pretty high in there! It’s not mowed as often because we have to drag the lawn mower through the screen porch to get into the enclosed yard! Yeah, no gate. It’s okay though.

Maggie bought this awesome Pepsi clock at a garage sale on Friday with her Dad and Jessy. She also got a sweet pair of sandles for 25 cents. She is the queen of garage sales for sure. This coming weekend is a Parade of Garage Sales near Pioneer! 40 families!!! We are going to do a little serious shopping for certain!

As you can see, I’ve missed blogging something awful! Hopefully our internet issues are done and I am happy to report that the modem seems to be working wonderfully and we are not anywhere near our download restriction level. I think we can work with this. We raised it up to the next level and that seems MUCH better.

Good thing… the girls were about to throttle me with that one issue… haha…. they are children of the age, and technology is very important to them. But hey, me too!

The sunset was SO pretty tonight… and I just caught the odd little tail end of it. Dingo had to go out and then I saw it and wow… had to run back in the house for the camera. There was a rainbow as well, just a dim one, but still, wonderful. I got a fairly nice shot of the screen porch insides too!

Well I’m off to bed… been getting up at country o’clock. Which around here is like 5:30 to 6:00 am! I never thought I would get reset to farm time. Primarily, it’s having two geriatric dogs that can’t hold it in as long as they used to! But part of it is just being so excited to get another day started! Okay, yeah, it’s been cold as well.. hahaha… so I can only stand the cold house so long before my nice warm bed calls me in!!!

Night night…

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