Protecting Our Hard Work (and Other Updates)

Wow, the last month has been a whirl of craziness. Between plant parades to protect the tender plants from cold temps (should I REALLY need to be doing this in June?), ancestry research, my new Farm Town on Facebook addiction, working on a deck, weeding, prepping a new garden area, watering new plants to get them established, looking for free sources of mulch, building a birthday gift for Cheesehead, sports taxiing, class trips, plays, concerts, and school picnics, not to mention having company three out of four weekends I've barely had time to breathe.

I think I need a vacation and summer hasn't even started yet. Here are a few of the highlights.

I have been meaning to tell you about a lovely guest we've got living in the back yard for a while now.

Mother robin picked a very smart place to build her nest. She has chosen a variety of materials for her nest and chose a well sheltered, protected place to raise her family. It is high up and far out of reach of predators and protected from wind and rain too. The only thing she really has to put up with is us. She seems to be fairly tolerate of Cheesehead and I as long as we all just sit quietly and watch each other. I was sitting 20-30 feet from her. I've never gotten so near a wild bird while she's sitting in her nest. She's not so fond of movement or noise so does not stay in her nest when we do either of those things. She is very good at scolding us too. Her favorite perches to scold us from include the kids' swing set or a tall nearby pine tree. She has some new babies in the nest I know now as I saw her feeding them earlier. We decided to let her have the back yard to herself for a while so we don't endanger the health of her babies.

Well, as much to herself as I can anyway. I have to keep an eye on my garden!

The endless plant parade of covering and uncovering plants has continued into June. Some of the plants are not happy with this occurence.

Those plants include the tomato plants in the front yard. They seem to like warmer weather than we've had lately. I guess I need to drink more milk!


The tomatoes in the back yard seem to be much happier. It has stayed cool enough that I have kept the milk containers on them still. Gallon milk jugs with the bottom cut off work great. The semi-transparency allows sunlight and warmth in and the small hole in the top allows water in and extra hot air out. I think they've been in place for about 3 weeks? Look how much bigger this one is than the one in my front yard! I cover them all with blankets, tarps, or towels when it's supposed to get down around freezing. Don't want the poor things to get frostbite now, do we?

It's trying to escape out of the top of the jug. You should have seen the look of surprise on Cheesehead's face when I took him on the garden tour. He was a bit miffed about all of the garbage I had sitting in the garden until he saw the results.

We had a few other people to bring on the garden tour too.

"Grandpa" used to love to garden. He's going to be 91 soon and has trouble bending down and isn't as agile as he used to be. He just moved in with MIL and BIL and he's really enjoying it there. I just HAD to show him my garden.

He was feeling upset living at the nursing home for the last several years, but stayed because he and his wife were both there. She passed away several weeks ago and they had him on 24 hour watch. They were afraid he'd run away after his second wife died.

Remember how I was talking about MIL's helping someone as well as herself? He's been happily living with them now for a couple of weeks and they're getting along well. MIL seems happier now that she's got some one to fuss over again too. She's been out of sorts since FIL died almost 2 years ago. I don't remember seeing "grandpa" happier in a long time either. He told us many good stories and enjoyed our house in the woods while they visited for Cheesehead's birthday.

I showed "grandpa" the ancestry work I've been doing too. He was fascinated and wondered how in the world I got all of his relatives' names. I printed him a copy of his grandson's five year chart to take home with him. (His looked woefully pitiful) Hopefully someday I'll be able to get a bit farther back for them too, but it will take more time and a bit more information gathering.

Looks like I've got another busy summer ahead of me. Sorry if it seems I'm slighting anyone by not visiting much, it's not that I don't want to catch up and chat with you. Sometimes it feels like I'm meeting myself coming and going. I miss our chats and silliness. I'm sure I'll manage to fit some of that into the rest of my schedule sometime....

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

Cindy