Phase II

What happened to Phase I? That would be a very appropriate question here. I never got it blogged, but will do so out of order. Deal? Darrell and I have been working on a deck/patio remodel off of the kitchen for the last 2 weekends. We finished Phase I last weekend....... the moving of the herb garden. This weekend we finished the bird feeding garden that we began last weekend, too.

What about Darrell's knee? Another appropriate question. Although he set all of the bricks while sitting down, I hauled them all from the truck and handed them to him. Wanna feel my muscles? Like Popeye the Sailor Man!


After clearing out grass, weeds of all sorts and stray flowers, we set most of the brick wall.

The next step was to remove the Mock Orange Bush from the upper left corner. No small feat. Also transplant the huge sage bush into it (no more room in the herb one). Today we hauled dirt into it with the mower tractor and trailer from a dirt pile on the upper 40. Then we put a fake rock fountain in where the Mock Orange Bush had been. I set up the bird feeding pole with feeders and planted the garden area while Darrell worked on getting power out to the pump.

Work in process. He is also putting a water line in so I can have a spigot over that way.

Here is the 'finished' outcome.

Closer look at the fountain area.

There are several ground covers in the garden that will take a year or so to fill in. Patience. The birds love it! They even were coming to feed while we were out working in that area!

Scorcher!

Today was a H-O-T one ....... about 85 degrees here at home! Bethany L tells me it is good to record on the blog that we are having sunny, even hot weather. That way when the rain sets back in for days on end, we can go back and read that indeed, we did have a nice stretch of warm, sunny weather :-)

Poppy

English Daisy

Geranium

Whether the weather be fine,

Whether the weather be not,

Whether the weather be cold,

Whether the weather be hot,

We'll weather the weather,

Whatever the whether,

Whether we like it or not.

Hormiga

aka: Ant. To be specific, this is a carpenter ant. They are like termites, eating wood and houses. We have had our first hatch of them for 2009. Everywhere. I stomp on them, smash them and generally hate them. However, in taking close-ups with the macro lens.........

I see they are kind of cute! Just like in the movie Ants.

No, I probably will not start collecting and studying ants as another hobby. But they seem to be pretty amazing creatures! Just look at those legs!

And they discovered something very interesting: when it comes to walking, most of the ant's thinking and decision-making is not in its brain at all. It's distributed. It's in its legs. ~Kevin Kelly

Meet Ping

This evening Bethany came over to pick up a package and hold some ducks.

This is Ping, my personal favorite duckling. Very curious, and taming nicely. He is trying to hide in Bethany's hair here! Such a character :-)

Hugging his head to her shoulder, just like a human baby does!

He is also one of the loud-mouths of the lot! I had my close-up lens on, so could only focus on one area. Sorry!

For the record, mis hijos, Bethany also held Leo the Leopard Gecko tonight, too! You going to let her show you up?!?!

Utter Contentment!

We have had several days of warm, sunny weather to soak up the Vitamin D. So wonderful!

What is this hen watching so contentedly?

Joy, who came over this afternoon to water the vegetable garden. Watering is such a relaxing 'chore'. These are the cucumbers.

The corn has really taken off. I do think it will be at least knee high by the 4th of July :-)

I have several beds of garlic. They are planted in the fall, so are tall by now, so they will be ready to harvest in August or September.

The cats, the dog and the chickens hang out by the garden when we are out in it. Yep, I feel as lazy and contented as this cat looks! Have I ever told you that I love sunshine?

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler

Flora

For the final post on our Heybrook Lookout hike last week, following are just a handful of the flora that populated the forest we hiked through!

Wild Yellow Violets

Oregon Grape

What?!?! Wild Oregon Violets?

Salal

Purple Trilliums

White Trilliums

Some of the trillium leaves were larger than my hand!

One of many types of mosses, with bitty flowers!

Deer Ferns

Sword Ferns

?

?

?

Washington State Animal :-)

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. ~Aldous Huxley

Shrooms

After the hike to Heybrook Look Out, I am curious now as to the identification of mushrooms. Maybe I will take up yet one more hobby! These are what we saw, though I know none of their names. If you know any of them, please enlightened me!

For me these are called 'Shelf' mushrooms.

I call this one 'The Blob"

Top

Side/Underneath

'Hard Hat'

"Fried Egg'

I better not say

'China Man's cap'

'Fairy Mushrooms'

These were my favorites. So teensy weensy!

The Smurfs are little blue people who live in magic mushrooms. Think about it.

Sunday Outing

Yesterday my DIL, Bethany, and I took the ducklings on a field trip to the backyard. It was a warm, sunny day perfect for exploration!

They had to forge their trails through the grass.

They wanted to crawl inside Bethany's skirt!

Aren't they cutie pies?

These Indian Runners are quite curious.

This is Allie. She is a Swedish Blue, and will be the mate of Sven!

We are trying to tame them to want to come to us.

Their favorite part of the field day was 'swimming' in a shallow tray. They had to take turns, but relished the water!

Allie got soaking wet!

There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle. ~ T.S. Eliot