Oh My...Last Post for the Month of July!!!

Hi there everyone. Can you believe it? The last day of July, I think it was just a few days ago that it was July 4th.....right?!?! The summer is flying by way too fast. I am still working on my yard, planting, painting, pulling weeds and what ever tickles my fancy. Sometimes I just prefer to be lazy and do NOTHING!!! I read someplace, that in retirement, everyday is Saturday.....I am still waiting for that, guess I have not been retired long enough....lol!

So, Sunday I cooked on the grill. I am surprising myself, I've grilled more this year then I have in previous years....not sure why, one reason might be that I moved the grill to the patio area rather then in front of the garage.....seems more cozy here and I can sit on the chair and watch the fire. The walk into the house is shorter...…(ha, by a few steps). 

I have chicken (from Sam's Club) was marinated and sprinkled with my homemade seasoning....soooo good! The red potatoes were halved, sprayed with avocado spray, seasoned with my homemade seasoning. I then put them in the microwave for about 15 minutes then put on the grill. I should have taken a picture when the food was done....potatoes and chicken browned perfectly! I just finished up the last of chicken about 30 minutes ago. Good meal with plenty of left overs for JP's dinners. This definitely will be a regular for the grill the rest of this summer.

 So now I will take you on a tour of my back yard.....mind you, there is so much to do yet, probably by the time I get everything done....it will be late Fall and time to put everything in the garage and shed. In the above picture, I have one cherry tomato plant growing....gives me a handful of tomatoes almost every day. My white rose bush died....we will have to dig it up one of these days.....no rush.

In the above picture, I have 3-4 bean plants growing...yep have gotten some beans off the plants. In the black container above the beans, I have a basil plant growing. I took a bunch of leaves off, rinsed them, and placed them on the chicken, cooked a little bit longer, then put mozzarella on top of the basil and chicken...oh yes!! A little marinara sauce helped also.

See those purple and red drawers and broken brown chair? Eventually I will fix the chair and spray paint it and the drawers will eventually have shade flowers growing in them....any ideas?

Here we are at my pond area....love this part of my yard. I need another layer of mulch to brighten things up. See the ceramic cow down in the right corner??? I will be spraying her white with black spots, she will be a Holstein cow. I think she was originally all brown and the paint wore off....time to repaint.

A few hosta's and inpatient's growing in my pond area. Not a lot of sun shines in this area....it's mostly shade. See my Flamingo's....love Flamingos. 

Here is my little sitting area....although I have not had time to sit, cause every time I sit down on my red bench....I see something that needs to change or moved some place else. See my tires? Been spray painting them and growing things in them....still not done. I have a tire that I will paint bright pink. That will be a colorful addition. Bought a "popcorn hosta" and it will go in the pink tire.

This is my second planter that I received free from Habitat for Humanity. This one has beans, pepper plant and a tomato plant. I am planning on planting some chives, and lettuce and maybe some spinach.

If you have made it to this point, I congratulate you and hopefully I didn't bore you. 

In this planter are onions, carrots, a new planting of radishes, beans, pepper plant and cucumber plant that is really producing an abundance of cucumbers. As I mentioned in a previous post....these plants get the morning and early noon sun.

So there you have it. A walk in my garden. I have a few more pictures to share, but that will come in the next post, hopefully within the week.

Talk to you all later, have a great week and coming weekend. Keep looking up, better days are coming. Cheers ~ Louise

Dismantling a Water Fountain & Another Tree

A beautiful SPRING DAY on the Fox River!!!! Yay......it feels so good to experience a day like this!!!    It's been a long, long hard winter!!



This is on the Fox River, taken from Sandi's backyard.........beautiful day on April 27th, 2013!



When Sandi and Doug moved into this house, they asked if we would like this fountain. Yes! I said, I love the sound of water falling...probably I would like living near Niagara Falls too!! So on this beautiful day, we began to dismantle the water fountain along with the help of Sandi's grandson and his 3 friends. We got 2 loads of rocks, many of them were cemented together and had to be sledge hammered apart, but the boys enjoyed showing off their manliness and the walls came tumbling down!!!

Here you see JP and Doug relaxing while the 3 boys took another load of flagstone to our house. I think retirement is agreeing with both men!!!

In this picture you see all the flagstone dumped in our back yard. Now the fun begins. I think I will put the fountain in this area by the garage as the fountain will be nearest the electrical outlet. I am going to build the stone around the lining (some how). It may take me all spring and summer to finish it, but it should be good exercise moving the flagstone around. I may check some of the stores in town to see their displays before I start though and then check out prices for water pumps....not sure what I want yet, but I know I want a pump that SOUNDS like a fountain.......some fountains can sound so wimpy. So I will be listening to a few fountains, they are so relaxing!!!

I will need to get a picnic table to sit by the fountain, as we already had someone saying they would like to come over and picnic with us when the fountain is finished! Deal.....sounds like fun!!! Hot dogs and hamburgers coming up!!

Today, April 29th. We woke up to the sounds of chain saws and men cutting the tree down across the street!!! Ha....the demise of another tree!!! These trees get so big, then they become a problem....sorry to say, we have two trees needing to come down or be trimmed.
Do I hear a bid to donate the work or $$$$???
I guess the cost of this tree was $1200. The tree in back of this one, to take down was $3000-yikes!!!
I am afraid to ask what our trees might cost!! 

LOOK OUT!! Here comes a limb!!!

One of the limbs came down and hit the side walk of the neighbors house, made a big dent on their walk-way.

Well, the big, bad tree is down...not sure what they are going to do with all the chunks of wood.
 The  neighbor on the right likes to burn wood in his out-door fire place, perhaps they will keep it.
Maybe we will see lots more sun and flowers cause the neighbor on the left likes to landscape!!!

Time to close this blog, you all take care and keep looking up for your redemption draws nigh!
Recipe tomorrow, if it turns out good. Lental soup, "Jacobs Way"
Cheers ~ Louise

PS...I am not sure what is going on with the above paragraph, looks fine from here, but when I update and view blog this is what it looks like........sooooo.....I guess I will leave it. Have played and played and can't seem to fix it so, I will leave it........se' le' vee!!! That's life!!!

Coffee and Taxes and Garage Sales

NOT!!!!!

Now that will get your attention......hahahahaha!!! So how is your day going? Just by reading Facebook and a few blogs today, I have noticed a few people have already been out running or baking or resting. ME, just contemplating what I'm going to do next, after doing this blog. {Well, as you can see, I changed the look of this blog, for 1 thing. Do you like it, looks a little antiquey, like me!!!}

Going to have a garage sale September 20th and 21st, am hoping the weather will be fine, if not I am sunk. I could try for this next week-end I suppose, but would really have to hustle to get stuff marked and set-up. Much depends on the weather, no one will come in the rain, I wouldn't.

Retirement has been very busy for me.......don't know where I would fit in working if I was still doing that. And, how in the world did I do it all those years of working and keeping a house and all the other things I was involved in......just don't know. I didn't even have "kids" added to the quota. Just a husband and lots of animals along the way. I guess we do what we have to do at the time we are doing it!!!! It all works out in the end like the wash on Monday mornings!!!

Well, I better get going if I am even going to accomplish a few things today, like try at least getting the garage cleaned and ready for the Garage sale. See ya' later and have a great day in what ever you do today and keep looking up for your redemption drawth nigh!!! Cheers to all ~ Louise