Who's Cuter?

Austin? (aka: Little A)

Or Luci? (aka: the cutest lil dog in the whole wide world!)

I may be a little biased, but I love them both.

Spiderwort

Tradescantia ohiensis

This little gem is in the front garden. I don't know what I like better, the flower or the name.

Spiderwort. Spiderwort. Sure is fun to say.

This Year's Garden

Well, like I said in an earlier post, I caught the gardening bug again. I wanted to transform a dead corner of the yard into a nice veggie garden. Nothing too big, nothing too out of hand, just enough space to grow enough to stash some veggies in the freezer for the winter.

First I must say that I like the raised beds for their neatness and for their ability to let you pack tons of veggies into a small space. I had luck with them at the old house. Also, the area that I planned out is directly above our plumbing that leads to our septic system. The soil that the plumbers and excavators deposited there was a hard clay mix, not condusive to a healthy garden.


Well, this is what I threw together our first year here:
Can you even see those two tiny coffin-like raised beds against the chain link fence? Yes, pathetic, but they gave us some nice tomatoes and peppers and green beans. That vertical eyesore is the pole that the previous owners had their satellite tv dish on. I tossed together a trellis out of some scrap cedar and put it over that pole.

Here's my idea starting to come together:

Then after some measuring and cutting and hammering and hauling dirt and woodchips and planting, here we are:
I built me a little potting bench/tool bench/coffee cup holder bench:And a little compost bin between the two old raised beds:

And hopefully this is a sign of a good harvest to come:

Rye

Trail Ride!

Our club's open house trail ride was yesterday. I had to guide the 9 am ride, and there wasn't hardly anyone there:

Only one lady was ready to go, so I had a small "group":
We rode for a bout 3-1/2 hours and had a great ride.

We returned to see this:

These two were giving wagon rides around the farm:
And we had live entertainment:

It was a great day.

I own the best horse in the world.

King of the Barn

Meet Jones.

Mr. Switchblade Jones.

His kingdom is the barn and he rules over everything that happens in the barn with a well armed paw.

He is by far the most vocal cat I have ever owned.
When he is not yelling at you for some unknown reason, he does this.

He's got it good and he knows it.
We have to give a big thanks to Heather for letting us adopt this big lug.