dead nettle mettle

I love this time of year.  Every time we walk, we see new things popping out of the ground and new green on formerly empty vines and branches.

My favorite right now is the ferns.  They are so beautiful as they slowly unfurl.

We're seeing so much activity, too.  Squirrels...

...geese...

...turkey vultures...

...and raccoons are daily visitors.

Chogs are back!!

Oh, hello!

We have a nesting pair of herons in our back pond!

It's a lot of excitement.  ;)  We've even got some insect activity!  Spiders have been making webs everywhere.

I've been frantically working in the back garden to try to stay ahead of the weeds.  It was cold, and then we had a week of rain.  Finally, it dried out, but the weeds got a head start.  This is the front of our side bed...

...and this is the huge weed patch in the middle of it. My perennial bee balm is growing up amidst the sea of dead nettle, wild cress, poison ivy, and other monsters.

So...much...dead nettle.

I've put in hours and hours and barely made a dent.  There's a lot of guilt, too, because in early spring, bees rely on dead nettle for sustenance...and I'm yanking it up by the handful.

I've left plenty for them, and besides...our crabapple tree is blooming.

Dandelions and violets are up, including some especially pretty varieties...

My late-blooming daffodils are still holding on, and vinca is blooming everywhere...

In short, they have plenty to eat right now.  

Claudia continues to come outside, briefly, on nice days...

...but she's definitely ready to go back in the barn after a few hours...and she never wants to be outside at night.  She and Todd have always gotten along...

...but he never thought they'd be roommates one day!  :)  She's always by his side in his barn office now, begging for attention or sleeping on her special mat.  She's definitely enjoying retirement!  

And, as usual, our indoor cats are enjoying...whatever.

Still not allowed on the table...but taking advantage of my distraction while working on a business project.

Spring is a busy time, but hopefully I can get the garden in shape in time for the hot weather.  Have a great week!  

a table fable

It's hot - really hot.  We've gone from blissful 70 degree days to 95 degrees daily, with zero rain.  Thankfully, my garden tasks are petering out.  I've up-potted the last of the seedlings in good soil.  After a week or two of growth, I can pop them in the ground.  Otherwise, sporadic weeding, and just enjoying the things that are already up.  Hot pink bee balm...

...and hydrangeas in the shade!

I've had to replant MORE morning glory seeds this week.  Earlier in the spring, the "backyard" chogs ate my thriving seedlings...

he looks so innocent!

...so I planted more, and moved the buckets adjacent to the front yard - where our "woods" chogs indulged.

I've got a woods chog (or last year's babies, who relocated to the woods next to our property) visiting my annual garden - a first.

If he starts to do a lot of damage, our only choice will be to put up ANOTHER fence on that edge of the garden, which would be a huge pain.  I'm hoping that other deterrents will work.  I'm always watching while I'm working at my desk upstairs.

From that same vantage point, I saw that we have a deer and her baby in the side field.  Todd has been getting his daily exercise by mowing it...

...so I can easily see any activity there.  I was able to get close to her last week...

...but she keeps the baby carefully hidden away.  I've only been able to get a quick glimpse through the upstairs window before they melt into the brush.

We've caught her on the trail cam, though, and...ugh.  Ticks.  TICKS!  It's the deer that are bringing to many ticks to our yard.  Check our her ears.  Those are TICKS!

These ticks are getting a juicy blood meal from the deer.  They mate, eat, engorge, drop off, and overwinter in the grass and underbrush.  In the spring, they lay THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of eggs, and the cycle starts all over again.  Deer also bring fleas...I wish we could completely fence them out, but they can jump up to 12 feet.  It's just not feasible to try to fully fence them out.  

On to more pleasant creatures, like this giant leopard moth.  A real beauty!

A green heron is fishing in the front pond...

...and we're getting the usual group of fliers on our front porch.

I finally finished the side table project! The "before" on these Ethan Allen tables:

...and now:

It took a lot of sanding, and then a couple coats of Minwax finish in "Natural."  I bought some baskets to put in the bottom, for Todd's CPAP machine and other miscellaneous.  The style doesn't quite match our bed and armoire and I *still* haven't gotten around to replacing our 20+ year old lamps, but I don't care.  Baby steps!  

Another fun find for me:  I found a couple of Americana-style canvas prints at a sale this weekend.  I'm not a huge fan of that style, but I was instantly drawn to them, especially the larger one.

It reminded me so much of the big white church next to my great grandma Grace's home.  I pulled an image.  They aren't quite the same, but same basic shape...close enough for my mind to make the leap.  When I see this print, I see the church of my childhood.  

The print even has a white house on the left, just like Grace's house (although they don't look similar).  I look at this print and remember all the times I played "Ghost in the Graveyard" behind the church, and all the nights I watched bats swarm in and out of the belfry.  

I actually have some old photos of Grace's house.  Here it is, before they bought it...this must've been the late teens or early 1920s.

Move in day!

I don't have many photos from my childhood so I'm so thrilled to have these photos, and to have found that canvas print of the church that is so, so similar to the one I loved so much as a child.  

A little walk down memory lane...now back to reclining in the heat.

Have a great week!