Caturday Everyday

I do think the kitties know it's HOT.

 

Once Upon a Time I Was a Flower Child

Now I grow flowers. Not a bad trade-off.

When you live in the country there are poles and electrical boxes and stuff in the middle of a garden. Self-seeding morning glory climbs the pole to make it less intrusive. The iris are in bloom. The yellow/orange came with me from my home in St. Paul. So did the jungle of daylily which are everywhere.

This is what I mentioned to Denise. In amongst all the ferns are hosta  I'm slowly transplanting elsewhere. 

This looks like a field of iris. I have another large bed of this same iris which hasn't bloomed yet.

One of two areas prepared for wild flowers.....

.....and the second. This one has been partially seeded.

I over-wintered this large pot of flowers in the house. It did well.

Last week I had the heat on. Yesterday was 90 F/32.2 C. Just as I was getting a good start on the yard and gardens in comes the heat and worse, humidity. I know it's our new normal but I sure would appreciate the old days of spring. Spring in Minnesota was typically May and June. Today will be more tolerable but then it starts up again and continues. Bah!

 

The Days of Weeds and Seeds

Zing enjoying the day.

 

We've got some of the projects done over the past few days. Two wild flower beds have been prepared, one partially seeded. I greatly underestimated the amount of seed I need. Mowing, weeding. It's a start. Of course heat and humidity have moved in, so it's a limited amount of time I am able to spend outside. I plan to go to the local nursery this afternoon to buy my few vegetable plants.

Digging Dirt

Good Morning. Feeling a bit low today, perhaps attributable to the gloom outside. On the positive, I have spent the prior two days working outside. Mowing (still not finished) weeding and transplanting hosta. Did you know they are part of the asparagus family? No wonder I like them so much. They are prolific spreaders, as are the ferns that have placed themselves in with the hosta, completely covering them from view. So, finding new homes, like I do every few years.

I have two large tubs that are placed in front of the silo for the summer. I have decided to transplant some of the many catnip plants growing everywhere into those pots and accent them with something colorful. Nature, and birds, have provided me with most of the landscaping, as well as for my son. They dug up some catnip last year for their cats and her native wild flower front yard.

If you don't hear from me for awhile it is because I am focusing on the tasks at hand, which will hopefully rid me of this malaise. Nothing dark, don't worry. Just there.

No Surprises

Gatto has his own peculiar ideas about helping me with laundry. I think the point is, as he sees it, that if he is lying on it I don't have to fold it. Nice thought, mister. I guess I'll be running it through the rinse cycle.

As I stated on Sunday, life is different for me and one of those differences is spending much more time in the kitchen cooking and baking. I used the slow cook method for the tri tip roast along with potatoes and onions. Accompanied by steamed asparagus. No pasta!

 

Of course, life would not be complete without bread.

We have sorely needed rain. We got about an inch overnight. It is so welcome. It's very windy, so not a day for sowing wild flower seeds, but tomorrow will be sunshine and mild. That sounds like a good yard day.

Be Like Gatto

Do you notice a theme?

And another?

 

Life adjusts. I am coming to an understanding with this fact. The strong, active, horse manager-trainer-tender-bossy lady has, not so quietly, become someone else. The dog crazy person now has cats. And a raccoon. Still manages the horses, but less hands on. 

I have always cooked. When we lived in St. Paul I loved to entertain and I had the people around me to commune with. There is something to be said about living in a city neighborhood. During the twenty years of intense involvement with horses and the industry I was less involved in house and home. I did not ignore my gardens! Now I am in the next phase of life. House and home. Baking, cooking. Cleaning carpets.

I've also become softer in my personality. Part of aging? Letting go of the past? Probably. What I do know is, in this time of constant turmoil and uncertainty, I am, as they say, savoring the moment.

Back to the Disaster

This is a photo from our first summer living here. It shows the tar papered unfinished section of the exterior of the house. It also shows Chloe, our Lab/Dalmatian girl.

These photos are about 15 years ago, those large trees have been gone for several years. Sadly.The screened porch is the tar paper area on the above photo. The foundation for it was already there. We had it built that first summer.

The screened porch was the connecting piece on the outside.

We reached 87 F yesterday. It will be 80 F today then 50s and 60s. Sixties is great gardening weather so that will be my agenda for the week. Yesterday and today I am occupied by steam cleaning the carpets. Three down, three more to go in the living area. The remaining three are a runner and two smaller area rugs. They badly need it. I bought this one in 1981. It's survived many large dogs and several cats.

In between I managed to make biscuits and bread. I know, too much excitement to bear. Actually, the draw to blogs is, for me anyway, the daily happenings in the lives of those we come to a friendship of sorts through the click of keys.

The Old Grey Mare

I took some photos a couple of days ago when the mares meandered from pasture to the paddock.

This is 32 year-old Babe. The first born.

20 year-old Ivy. She is a half-Arab, the other half is American Saddlebred. Half Arabians are registrable as long as one parent is a registered purebred Arabian.

This is Babe's son, 21 year old Zenny. He was her last foal. 

25 year-old Queen. Her name says it all. She is half-Arabian. Her dam was a Morocco Spotted horse, now deceased Fleetwind.

Poor Zenny has spent his entire life with the mares. He was weaned with his sister and I put him back with the mare herd because he is sort of a dependent kind of guy. He has stuck with his dam. Mares are bossy, that's why I say poor Zenny.

I finished mowing yesterday. We need rain or it won't be green much longer. Later I will attempt some weeding and seed sowing. I also need to put seeds in my pots. I'm attempting to grow all flowers and herbs from seed. I did herbs last year and it worked out well. I have decided the only plants I'm going to put money into are my few vegetables.

As an aside. New brakes for a car have become rather costly. Now we need new tires. *sigh*

New Species to Me

Prunus virginiana L

Chokecherry

I was mowing yesterday and saw this amongst the wild things growing in abundance on the property. I have not seen this before so I looked it up on the plant identifier. It's large enough that I know it's been here a little while, growing where a pine was felled 3 years ago. I find it very pretty and it has a light fragrance. Something new to add to the northern jungle.

I got half the yard mowed. I won't be finishing today as it is very windy and what I have left is in the wide open. We took the car in for new brakes today. I was going to drive the truck but that couldn't happen. The power seat wouldn't move and it is not possible for me to reach the pedals. Locked out of driving my own truck. Just not right.

Does Gatto know this is a Goodwill box?

More About The House That Was a Disaster

My favorite room in the house.

As I noted before, this house was a disaster when we bought it thirty-two years ago. A neighbor, who had looked at it before buying some of the land, gleefully told me her husband said the best thing that could happen with the house is a bulldozer. I did not respond. I loved the barn and immediately saw the potential of this hodge-podge house. 

This is part of the 1984 edition to what remained of the original farmhouse. This area was not a disaster, it just needed some finishing work. The 1984 section of the house is on the east end.

Now we jump to the west end 1973 addition. It is now a bedroom but had been the living room/dining room combination. This was the disaster area of the house. The person we bought from purchased from the original farm owners in 1983. He was a highly creative man with a serious alcohol problem. After the east addition he just stopped. The outside of this part of the house was left in tar paper and nothing had been done with this end. This was what my neighbors saw as a unfixable problem and I saw as possibilities.

You will excuse me for taking this opportunity to show off some of my horses professional photography sessions. We turned this into a bedroom. It's large enough for two moderate sized rooms but if that happened one room would be windowless, so it's one.

Gatto also likes to admire those lovely equines.

There were three bedrooms, two of them small. We took down the dividing wall, making one room. From that I had a small area sectioned off for a broom/coat closet. There weren't either in the house.

Just for smiles, my furball, Gatto.

Also, a dinner that took as long as the pasta cooking time.

 Happy Mother's Day.