Bountiful Blessings

Some people may be a bit skeptical about these so-called blessing of mine, but I'll let you be the judge. We had a busy morning today. It was cooler than it has been for a while and the breeze was blowing.

The next week is supposed to be humid and rainy, the perfect morning to get a load of work done! I was going to wait to plant any new plants, but with all of the rain that's supposed to be headed our way I decided not to wait.

First I planted the hostas that Lisa was so kind to send me. I know I said I was going to wait until fall, but I decided that I had to time to baby them and I want to get them firmly established before the frigid winter winds start to blow. I'll expand the shade garden in the spring instead. On the way to the shade garden, look what I found!



Cute baby toads. The ground seemed to be alive with these things. Everywhere I walked I spotted one hopping along somewhere. Where in the world did they all come from? The kids picked a few up to observe for a while. The toads didn't seem to like it though, so they didn't stay very long.

I also wanted to get my asparagus planted. Yup, I went and got a GREAT after season clearance deal on a wonderfully huge plant. It was orignally selling for $10 and I got it for only $3! Soon we'll be enjoying asparagus again. I put it in the mulched area by the house in the side yard. I hope this spot is sunny enough for it to grow abundantly, I'll get those kids to like it yet. I've decided I want to learn how to can and preserve foods that grow around here. That way we can live on God's blessings for a while and stretch our budget to include more fun family activities instead of using all of our hard earned money for buying food.



Look what I found when I was planting the asparagus. I'll have to find out what kind of wonderfully beautiful butterfly this little fella is going to be. I know they don't all turn out to be the best, but I like it when they're fluffy.

Then it was on to deadheading the petunias. It wasn't SO bad, but such a tedious job. I do want to get more blooms this summer though so it's a job I wanted to get out of the way.

As I wandered to the back yard to put the spent heads into the compost pile, I was reminded of the tree we discussed this spring.



You were right, it is a cherry tree! We grill out by this tree quite often all year long, even going so far as to shovel an area in front of the grill in the winter time. There weren't any fruits on this tree last year, REALLY. Not that I'm complaining. I hope the birds leave me a few of them to attempt to make some jelly later this season. I've never actually made jelly before, but I hope to be able to figure out how.

The compost pile is near our cook out area. As I passed by the grill I remembered that I needed to make a new handle for it. The old handle was broken off when a violent hail storm knocked it down 3 years ago.

I hope my fix works out, I used a 5/8 dowel rod and two "L" brackets. I've been meaning to get to that job for a couple of years now. Have you ever done that? You buy the materials to fix something right away and then they sit around for a long time before you get around to doing it?

I used some more of the dowel to fix Cheesehead's prized wooden lawn ornament that was damaged during the same storm. I need to find a couple of missing pieces before that job is completely done, but I got a good start on it anyway!

Once I had finally made a new handle for the grill and painted it to protect it from the elements, I decided to sand the rust spots and paint those too. To protect all of the work I had just done, I was going to clean off the grill cover that's been on the ground for quite some time.

Long enough in fact, to become a nursery of sorts... Look what was in there!



Not only was there a baby rodent, but also



an ant nursery. Those ants sure were scurrying to move the babies somewhere safe.

I decided the grill has gone without a cover for this long, a couple more weeks won't cause any major harm to it, right? So, we put the grill cover back as closely to it's original position as we could without spilling the precious cargo inside. The poor baby mouse sounded awfully scared squeaking while we moved it around, the mom came by to see what was going on. We decided to go inside so she could check on the safety of her baby.

When we got inside, we called Grandma. Peanut told her what we saw today she asked if we killed the mice. What harm is a couple of critters anyway? As long as they aren't in my house, I don't mind them. That baby is so new it has very little fur and it's eyes were still tightly closed. Was I supposed to kill one of God's magnificent creatures on the off chance that it may get into my house? I'm sure the wonder cats wouldn't be all that helpful if that should happen, but I've dealt with rodents before.

Now it's thundering and I'm feeling pretty good about all of the work that got finished today. I hope that the plants get plenty of water in the next few days.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy