Every Blog Needs some Bling!

Many, many thanks to Savvy Working Girl for passing along the Every Blog Needs a Little Bling! award. It was most unexpected and came in a week that needed some bling. You know. You all have them.


This is an award that I need to pass along, with thanks to these bloggers whose writing I enjoy, and who give me something. I've learned from you and laughed with you; I've been in awe of your writing and sometimes your guts. It's a chance to say a huge thank you to my heroines in the blog world. So, I hope you will check out some of these blogs.


To Denise at Little Pheasant and to "Flower Jane" at Small But Charming. These two intrepid florists do gorgeous work. Denise will show you something special she created today and tell you about it, and Jane could tell you ... well, anything. She and I have discovered that we grow doppleganger gardens about 100 miles apart, so we are frequently caught comparing what bloomed today?

To Anneka at Living a Dream and Deb at Sand Creek Almanac. Anneka and her guy have moved to Arizona and are living on a farm, complete with horses, veggie gardens and beautiful vistas. She will take you on a ride in the hills with photos that will leave you breathless. Deb lives in the wilds of Minnesota with her family. She plays the flute, mandolin and banjo and writes wonderful posts from - what is to me! - the frozen north. And, she makes a mean dandelion wine.

To Charlene at The Balance Beam and Vivianne at Vivianne's Vista. Charlene is an expert on bringing balance to one's life and has great advice, written in a witty, fun way. She needs a little extra love right now, so go visit her and send some her way. Vivianne is a survivor, with a capital S. Share her success story and you'll be uplifted.

To Jill at Third Age Musings and Pink Fairy Gran at The Three R's. These are my English bloggers. Jill is a retired teacher who takes wonderful photos and does perfectly gorgeous handwork of several kinds. You will be inspired to do something when you read her! Pink Fairy has been silent for a while, so I hope she is well. She writes about life in a small village in the English countryside. Perhaps more interesting to those of us "of a certain age", but well written.

To Appalachian Lady at Appalachian Journal and Barefoot Gardner at Barefoot in the Garden. Appalachian Lady is a retired college professor who lives in the mountains of Virginia where she writes about birds, bees, flowers, and life. Excellent photos. Barefoot Gardener is a relatively young gardener who is building her first "real" garden with help from her two small children. It's nice to follow a budding gardener as she works it out the way she wants it to be.

And, finally, to Marie at 66 Square Feet and Miss Caroline Bender at Drawing In. Marie is a South African expat, professional garden designer and cook par excellence. She posts little bits several times a day about the flora of NYC and the wonderful things she has cooked. She also gardens on a rooftop terrace that is only 66 square feet. You will be entranced! And Miss Caroline Bender is my muse. It was her blog that got me started. She always has a different insight into life and tells it imaginatively. Always many thanks to her.

So, I hope you will find a new blog somewhere in this list to add to your list. Read and enjoy! And, thanks again, Savvy!

What a Difference A Year Makes

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of my xeri-garden, and wow! Building it was hard work, but I enjoyed every minute and like anything that's difficult, the pleasure is directly proportional to the hard work!

The best part, tho, is that it does appear to be self-sustaining. I watered for the first month or two (June and July last summer) when it was particularly dry - to be sure that the plants got off to a good start. But since last fall I have not provided an extra drop. We had a wet winter and so far it continues to be a wet spring, so it has gotten plenty of water, but it's looking great. It still needs to fill in a lot, but that will come with time.

Almost wish I had another big project for this summer, but am feeling lazy so far, so will just see what develops!

This photo is for Cherise at The Money Pit. She has recently put in some raised beds, but is having critter difficulties. Mitchell built raised beds several summers ago for our veggies, and made these nice chicken-wire "covers" for them. The one on the left also has a frame with a lattice to support the tomatoes as they grow.

The covers have a 1 x 2" frame with chicken-wire stapled to it - one in each direction and then we used plastic tie-wraps to hold the two layers of chicken-wire togethers and keep the corners tight. They keep the rabbits and other small critters out.

We have big problems with the rabbits every other year. There is a small farm at the end of our street where the farmer alternates corn with soybeans. In the soybean years the rabbits dine there. But they are too short to reach the corn, so we have lots more rabbits in the corn years. Unfortunately, this is one!

Wednesday Workdays

You know I seek order. Well, if you didn't... now you do. I am still settling into a comfort level with my recently combined blogs, so decided that I need to impose some order here, too. So, effective today Wednesday is for describing the project du jour. Structure for me, and you can skip on over it if you're not interested. A win-win in any book!!

You may recall that last week's project was stripping and staining the deck. It seems like it took three weeks, but really only one.

The Starting Point: Normally we just slap another coat of sealer on our now 10-year old deck, but this year I found a neat idea in BHG and decided to strip the whole thing and stain it green (yellow house with hunter green trim, so it seemed like a great idea). Because we enlarged the deck about five years ago, I really felt that I needed to strip it all to try to minimize the existing difference in color of the "old part" and the "new part".

You can see over by the door that I have stripped the first section and it definitely looks more like the new part (foreground - duh!) Altho it was fairly easy to do, it was complicated. It had to be done in small sections so that the stripper wouldn't dry out, but stripper had to be applied to dry wood and then washed off with water. Then the second step had to be applied to wet wood. This resulted in all the surrounding wood being wet, so then I had to wait for it to dry before stripping the next section.

Initially I solved that problem by worked at each end and moving toward the middle, but eventually I got to the middle and that didn't work.

Once I started staining I did half of it on the first day - then it rained. Fortunately, the stain was dry enough and did fine - whew! Day two (once the wet deck dried after the rain) I stain another quarter - then it rained. And day four I finished it - then it rained. But it is actually finished, completely dry and ready for us to move the furniture today - before it rains.... tonight.

The finished product: Oh! did you notice it's not green? Underneath that cabinet - you see it - way in the back left corner - is the remains of a test patch of green stain. Yes, I had to strip it a second time! I didn't like it. Too yellow, too dark, too wrong - not at all like the one in BHG and not at all what I wanted. A quick trip to the Big Blue Box Store and a check of all their samples (don't think I am ignoring Big Orange Box Store - it was their stain that I had originally selected, so now I am looking for more alternatives!) and nothing. Nothing. There was nothing that I liked better. So home to strip the sample patch and then let the darn thing dry one more time.

But I am finally pleased. Furniture back in place, planters back in place and a chair for that afternoon glass of wine ready to go!

In the interest of blog-honesty... I do have to report that I still have to stain a zillion "stretchers", but since they are vertical and won't deteriorate with rain, I can take my time. And, most importantly, they do not affect the "sitability" of the deck.

A Wise Woman Cometh

Another dear, old friend came to visit yesterday. Fortunately, business brought her to town and we got to spend the evening catching up.

Stacy and I worked together for nearly 17 years. She was the manager in another part of the state and lived three hours away so it took a while to become close, but over the years we discovered that we had much in common. Both sticklers for detail and absolute honestly and neither suffering fools gladly. She brought professional experience to the table and I brought years of practical experience. We both brought common sense. Over the years we often found common ground in solutions altho we came to problems from very different directions. Our collaborations were strong and we found that we thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

She is currently enrolled in a PhD program and will soon be teaching at the university level and helping young people master her field. In the meantime she is working full time doing research into obesity programs and is trying to find ways to help our youth reverse the current trend of overweight in America.

A wife and mother, she is involved with her teenage son and makes time to be with him at school functions and athletic events. A daughter, sister and aunt, she is involved in her extended family - often including several generations in whatever activity she has going. A homemaker, she has the greatest red and white kitchen ever. I never see a red do-dad for the kitchen that I don't consider getting it for her.

Over the years she has helped me to stop and think things thru and to look at issues from many directions. She has listened when I needed to vent. She has called me to discuss an issue before making a decision, and together we have a fired staff member who was not making the grade. Today she's my weight loss adviser and a cheerleader for my never-ending struggled to drop ten pounds.

It was a delight to talk the evening away, and again over breakfast to find that the distance between us is so small.