Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Sick to my Stomach!

  I am sooooo upset and I have no one to blame but myself!  I was taking pictures last night at Bug's summer play and my camera started to act fun.  I turned it off and when I got home tried to figure out what was going on.  Not the best thing to be doing at midnight.  I decided the only way to fix it was to reset the camera to the factory settings and just set everything up the way I like it again.  Did I say, not something you should be doing at midnight.  Well, like a fool, when the camera asked to format, I hit OK.  NEVER hit OK if you have pictures on the SD cards you want to save.  Because, I wiped out 2 months worth of pictures!  They were from a reunion of my hubby & his 3 siblings, our daughter's play, the Fourth of July fireworks, which were amazing; a visit to a museum; a landscape project; and one of the most beautiful sunsets ever.
  So what is the lesson learned?  1) Download your camera every time you take pictures, i.e. at the end of the day, week, etc.  2) NEVER format your SD card unless it is blank or you WANT to erase everything on it and 3) If you ask around, there are usually so amazing people in your community that will offer to send you photos to replace the ones you lost.
   This last lesson I learned while I was writing this post.  I admit I had a little pity party about what happened, on Facebook.  I have gotten some great offers of pictures from the play and the reunion!  I can't say thank you enough!

Love to all,  Sara 

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Drowning in Paper

  I have been MIA for awhile.  I guess summer will do that to a person.  I just don't know where the time is going during the day.  Right now I am on a mission.  It seems like I am forever drowning in paper.  I have a goal to get all of the recipes I have gathered over the years onto my computer.  This is the stack of recipes I have left to go. 
Pile of recipes to input

  I think this is a huge improvement.  I use to have 6 binders of recipes that I had either printed off of the Internet or tore out of a magazine.  So if you don't see a lot of posts for awhile, it is because I am typing in recipes. 
  I have also set up some spread sheets so for tax purposes, so that when deductibles items come in I can put it in my spread sheet and than file the receipts etc. in my taxes file.  This way I won't have to go through a ton of paper and receipts at the beginning of next year to figure out our deductions.  So far, so good.  I just need to come up with a good filing system that will work for bills etc.  The one I have now is not my favorite, because I am having a hard time sticking to it.  Oh well. 
  Back to inputting things into the computer.  I promise when this is done, I will have a ton of posts to send out about our garden, the new landscaping project, canning, camping, fishing, you name it we have been doing it.  Hope you all are having a wonderful summer, also.

Love to all,  Sara

Monday, July 8, 2013

Hanging Washtub

  The Pinterest bug bit me again.  About a year ago, I saw this pin and just fell in love with it, Hanging Washtub Planter.  Here is a picture of the came from pinterest.
old tub 'hanging basket'... cool
Isn't it cute?  The lucky thing about is I had most of the needed items.  I have a ton of old washtubs I had gotten at an auction a few years ago for a whole $1.  All I needed was a plant hanger.  Surprisingly enough, finding a plant hanger was the most difficult part of the whole process.  You see, we have an old cart that came from my Hubby's family farm that we are using as a plant stand in the front yard and I wanted to tie that into the project.  So just a hanger that you stick in the ground was not going to work.  I had found the perfect hanger at our local greenhouse, but alas it was already sold by the time I spotted it.  We finally did just buy a hanger that goes in the ground, but it was too tall.  The Hubby promised he would modify the hanger so it would let the hanger just rest on the cart.  Well, I got tired of waiting for him to work on the hanger.  Bug and I happened to be shopping at a farm and home store and we spotted the perfect hanger.  It was everything I wanted in the first place.  Plus, it was only $19.99.  I have spent $20 much more foolishly in the past so we decided, why not!  And now I can use the other hanger in a different part of the yard.  It took about 10 minutes to complete the whole project once I had all of the supplies.  I really like this planter and the way the flowers hang over the edge.   
My supplies.  I did use a different hanger that just sets on top of the cart.

I used three plants to give it a full effect.

It doesn't look really full right now.  I had just watered the flowers before taking the picture.  Wrong move on my part.
 
  All I had to do was screw the plant hanger down onto the cart.  I would recommend this is you use the kind of hanger I did, there it just sits on top of something, otherwise the weight of the tub plus the dirt, etc. will topple the whole structure over.  Next, I put potting mix in the corner of the washtub.  I just laid the tub on it's side to do this.  You can also hang the tub up on the hook and fill then, whichever you prefer.  I would suggest using some really good potting mix.  All that is left is planting the flowers.  In the picture from pinterest, they show wave petunias.  Since I have many wave petunias in my log project not to far away from this, I wanted to try something else. I am using one plant of Calibrachoa "Cherry Blossom" and 2 plants of Calibracos "Cherry Star".
 
superbells_cherry_blossom.jpgsuperbellcherrystar.jpg
      Cherry Blossom                      Cherry Star
 
 
Hope you are having a wonderful summer in your garden!
 
 
Love to all,   Sara
 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

So Happy!

  I was checking out my garden beds the other day and I became just excited!  Some of you may know my mother died last year and the house she was living was actually her parent's home.  Needless to say, it had been home for many, many years and to a couple of generations.  The property that the house was on was sold to our church, which is next door.  We were able to take cutting of plants from the yard before the house was torn down.  My sister and another family member also took cutting.  What grabbed my attention when I was out walking is this:





 
The cutting from my grandmother's bleeding heart.  It survived!!!!!  Everyone that took some unfortunately lost their plants.  I am so glad that this one seems to be doing so well.  I distinctly remember 3 different plants in my grandma's yard and this bleeding heart is definitely one of them.  It was HUGE!  The plant I have is maybe one forth of the original.  The other two plants I remember are these berries that started growing voluntary behind the house and then the rose bush.  Don't ask me the kind of roses they are, but grandma had them for years.  She always swore that when she planted the rose bush it was pink, but one year they just started to bloom yellow.  I don't know if I believed her all the time, because she like to tell us a joke once in awhile, but I sure wasn't going to question Grandma!  Luckily both the cuttings from the berry bush and the rose bush are doing as well as the bleeding heart.  My sister has informed my that once these plants get established in my garden, she well be taken some of it.  I don't know if I will be willing to give any to her.  She did kill her first batch.  LOL
 
Love to all,   Sara

THAT IS IT!

  OK, I have had it!  It is coming down TODAY!  If I have to do I all myself.  What, you may ask, am I talking about?  It is the Engelman vine that is growing up a trellis and around my deck.  I just noticed the other day that it has some sort of fungal disease on it.

This is a leaf of the diseased plant.
 
  I am so tired of this vine.  Last year it had powdery mildew that spread to almost every other plant in the garden and now this year a fungus.  It has already spread to my green peppers.  I want it gone before my tomatoes and strawberries are next.  Besides, it takes over EVERYTHING!  We have to trim it back at least once a week.  It wants to take over the entire backyard.  I want it gone.  I told the Hubby that it needs to go.  He said that he would get to it sometime this past weekend.  Well, Bug and I decided we could do it ourselves!  It took us 45 minutes and one pair of clippers and the vine is GONE! 
 The pile of clippings from the vine

Bug after her hard work.  I couldn't of done it without her!
 
  It looks so much better without the vine around the deck.  I think we actually have more space on the deck without all the vines encroaching on the sitting area. 


The vines use to go up this trellis and along the side of the deck.  It also went around the corner and around the front side of the deck to the end.  It almost reached the end. 
 
 
Love to all,   Sara

Monday, July 1, 2013

Irrigation Days Rodeo 2013

   During our local community celebration, the local horse club put on a rodeo.  It was a lot of fun.  I think we had more fun at this rodeo than most because a lot of local people rode in different events.  It is great to be able to cheer on you friends as they are competing.  Here are pics of some of the different events that took place.
 

A member of team roping duo
 
The another member of team roping

The kids got to test their skills on sheep.

This poor guy got bucked off.

He had a little help staying on.

This young lady is a niece of a friend of mine.

She had a fabulous ride!

One of my favorite event: The Shovel Pull

You get just a little dirty!

Getting ready to take off.  Basically someone sits on a shovel and is pulled to the other end of the arena.  It is too funny!

The evenings entertainment

 Saddle Bronc Ridding
 
I love the bulls.

He didn't want to go home after he threw his rider.

Some sheep tried to convince the above bull to get in it's pen.

What a ride!

Hanging on for dear life!

Eight seconds is a long time.

I went to high school with this cowboy.  He was the ND High School Champion his senior year.

He hadn't been on a bull for 12 years,. He decided to ride that night to show his youngest son what he use to do.  He had an awesome ride. 
 
 
   Rodeos are not just about daredevil cowboys and cowgirls getting on the back of bulls or riding at breakneck speeds.  They are about family and all American fun, spending time with your animal training it to do what you want and training your body to do what needs to be done.  Once you have been bitten by the rodeo bug, it is there forever and you bring your whole family into it.  The cowboy I went to high school with, it is his daughter that was barrel racing.  They go a family.  True he spends more time judging now than riding, but they are still there as a family.
 
 
Love to all,    Sara