Day Full of Day Lillies

Today was supposed to be day two of yard work marathon. Hub said he wanted to sleep in and truthfully, he deserved it. Today marks him being home 1 week from his 'round the world work trip. I obliged his desire as I too love to sleep in. But all that sleeping meant much less yard work. We finally got outside about 11 or 1130.

Immediately, I went to work on my mint garden. After standing there during mid day, I realized the area I had slated for my mint garden did not receive enough light. So I changed plans. It has been on the back burner of my mind to break apart my plethora of day lillies and transplant them. So the area that was supposed to be minty freshness now became full of day lillies.

Transplanting these little babies involved me digging out the weeds/patchy grass, turning over the dirt, walking behind the garage to the compost pile and loading up a 5 gallon bucket, then spreading the compost over the dirt and then re turning over the dirt. I then walked across the driveway and dug out some day lillies, split them with my hands then re planted them in the compost mixture. After replanting an entire section, hub would hand me a bag of freshly ground sticks from our property to add on top as mulch. This entire operation took until about 5pm and yielded me an entire section of yard in which I can leave to Mother Nature. However, the area I was trying to clear out for my mint garden, still contains over 3/4 of the day lillies. It seems in splitting them, they go far..... REALLY FAR!

Hub spent the time adding the screens back to our windows, which is a God sent as the last few nights I've been eaten alive in my own home. The other night, I killed a mosquito and when hub saw it he asked if it was real. I'm not even going into the smart ass comments that came out of my mouth with that question.... but lets just say, "YEAH! IT WAS REAL!"

After screens he used our chipper, lovingly called "the beast", to chop up a pile of sticks and leaves we had set aside since fall. Those became the mulch around the new day lillies. I love recycling!

Hub then decided to move our gas grill to the "other side" of the drive way. He cleared out the weeds, recycled some rocks we had on hand and built a little patio for the grill to sit on. He is quite excited about it's new location. I think it looks good, but am not as excited. Our other option is on a deck that has yet to be built. Looks like this will have to do for now.

Tomorrow, we have more plans in store. We also are not sleeping in and are hoping for an earlier start. There are talks of a trip to the garden center, again. Those people at Best Feeds are beginning to know us by name. I still am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Stay tuned!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle or just compost!

The past two weeks I've been in charge of garbage. Not a job I readily accept, but in this instance, I have no choice. Hubby is out of town for work and so his "chores" fall on me. As I collected the garbage bags out of the upstairs garbage can and the kitchen garbage can, I was quite surprised. Everything I had to go to the street didn't even fill up one bag. I thought, surely I forgot about a few bags I must have hauled out to the garage and into the "big" cans. But, when I got there, I was surprised to see NOTHING! I then grabbed the two blue containers of recycling, which was overflowing. HMMMMM, I thought. I guess this week I did my job for Mother Earth.

My compost bin in the kitchen needs emptied and I began thinking how much garbage would be spared from the landfill if each person tried to only have one bag of garbage per week. The thought of something like that catching on, is probably out of this world impossible. However, if everyone could learn to compost, there would be much less waste. Less waste in the landfill, yeah, but even more so than that, less consumption of gas to pick up dirt, less chemicals being used to kill synergistic microbes needed for healthy plants, less money being spent on gardening needs, less.... well you get the point. We could use what we have and make our yards better with garbage. Yes you read that right..... GARBAGE!

Let's commemorate Mother Earth this week by attempting to lessen our garbage and maybe learn to compost.

Composting and Painting and Rocks, OH MY!

This weekend has proven to be the one that will KILL ME!!! Matt took off on Friday to help me get stuff done before my big Back Yard Tea Party next week.... (I am hoping in the next few years to call it a Garden Tea Party!). Thursday the FedEx man showed up with a package and it happened to be a three bin composter. Matt bought it for me for Mother's Day and I wasn't supposed to know about it, but the box read in big letters "COMPOST BIN" so no surprise for me...... So Friday morning Matt put the sucker together and we've started collecting kitchen scraps. It is so EXCITING to think that garbage can actually turn into dirt!!! OH WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!!! I am wondering, Den, if I need to leave the green in the garden or should I add it to my composter???

Friday morning I also got my feet wet using a drill..... I know this may not seem like a big accomplishment, but learning power tools give me a "woman power" that, as Oliver says, "I CAN DO IT!" I drilled holes into pots that I found at the local Thrift Stores..... reuse, recycle at it's best!!! I plan to use them in my garden as accent pieces. I also started to dig out the two rododendrons in front of my sun room. They are relatively small and I am transplanting them to the edge of my drive way. (Currently on the right side of the driveway is a mish mosh of small trees, bushes, weeds and tons of old leaves mixed with the HUGE trees that have been there for 90+ years. ) Well to get to the Rododendrons, I needed to rip out some troublesome ivy. Matt loves the stuff, I don't care for it. It doesn't say, "country cottage" like our house does..... He was pretty mad that I pulled out a "live, viable plant". I left half of the area with the ivy for now but have visions of a beautiful cutting garden there with two chairs, a table and lots of butterflies, humming birds and flowers!!!! He just can't see my vision...... and truly I am hoping I can provide that vision!!!

Friday, we also had a few ton of rocks delivered to add to our driveway. Matt would LOVE to pave it, but the cost is prohibitive and I am glad it is. Using the rock allows for drainage rather than runoff which is contributing to pollution in our water systems. I am also considering a water garden and a rain barrel (but we'll chat about these later)! Our original estimate was not correct and so we needed to add a few more ton...... This order came yesterday. Our driveway looks much better!!!

The rest of this weekend was rainy and crappy which was good for us as we painted our living room, sun room and the wall up the steps. We used SO MUCH paint that we didn't expect, AND we haven't even started on the trim!!! YIKES! That will have to transpire later in the season when I am kidless as Oliver stands over me and says, "mommy..... I help...... paintant" and Gaby just takes toy buckets and runs them over freshly painted walls or puts her hand on the wet paint and leans like she is James Dean. OY VEY!!

Matt and I awoke today to find holes in our paint...... so we need to add another f-ing coat. We literally painted until I fell face first into the paint tray last night...... and here we go again. I have a baby shower today so we gotta get it done before I need to leave...... Remind me NEVER to take on this task again!!!!