We've been working around the yard.

The front herb garden is usually mostly weeds with a few herbs here and there but if you didn't know what you were looking at you would think they were all weeds. The pond/fountain has been mostly frogs until Chris decided to get some fish. He wanted coy but they are so expensive and it is a very small pond so.... he is making due with gold fish. So far they are doing great. But... we think we have a cat fishing them because Chris found half a one laying on the ground.

Chris's fake coy fish pond.

We planted a few new herbs and picked the weeds from around others. Every year I add an herb or two. Some make it and other don't. I found a mint plant that I thought was dead growing in a completely different spot than where I had planted it. I planted some basil (that I can never get to grow) and sage. I have oregano and dill and garlic chives. I also put out some marigolds plants.

This is lavender.

Other plants just seem to come up in this herb flower garden on their own. Last year I was weeding and there was this pathetic looking little flower on a tiny little plant. Chris said pull it up it is a weed anyway. But I thought it was pretty and let it grow. Now I have this huge bush that is loaded every day with the prettiest flowers.

Wild flower! It is a blanket flower a type of sun flower native to Florida. About the size of a daisy.

We finished the garden. This year we went small and sweet. We've got strawberries planted and tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash, the usual. We may expand with some beans later in the season and it's too late for lettuce so... I may do some in a container where I can move it out of the heat.

Garden!

The blue berry bush is loaded. I hope the birds leave a few for me this year. It has a lot of air plants growing on all the branches. We are not in agreement as to whether these plants are harmful to the blue berry or not. So far it has a lot of berries not many leaves.

Blue berries!

So for the last few years we have not gotten a single orange off our orange bush. Why? Because of a tiny little snail. We bought this expensive organic snail killer they didn't seem to mind too much but then I learned a trick.....

Baby Orange!

If you save your egg shells and... grind them into a fine powder then sprinkle it around the plants afflicted with snails... it is like walking on glass for them. Their little slimy snail feet get all cut up and they go else where. So far it is working like a charm. And egg shell is good for adding calcium to the soil it's a win win for my orange tree.

egg shells

smashing them

turning them into powder.

Chris has been planting all the plants he had in containers around the house. We got two gardenia plants that my mom grafted from hers and a maple tree from  a seed that blew over from the neighbors yard also a fern palm thing my Aunt gave us, she thought would never live. All free stuff that is finally big enough to go in the ground. Also we acquired a banana tree but he has yet to put it in the ground.

Banana tree.

Gardenia

He also finally planted the mosquito bush. I hope it keeps the mosquito population down although I have heard it's mosquito shooing powers have been exaggerated. I first heard about this and have been saving every wild geranium in the yard but if they don't keep the mosquito's away I guess I will pull them up they don't really have flowers.

Geranium or mosquito bush.

The youngest daughter always complains about helping in the garden so she planted her own. It consist of sunflowers surrounded by pinwheels. Hey it's hard to get teens to do anything. 

V's garden!

Hope y'all got some work done in your yard. There is always something to do.

Lou's big New Years Eve party.

We arrived around 4:00. No tent to set up this year. Since we didn't have the kids with us we decided to sleep in the mini van. We removed the back seats and put in a blow up mattress. We were excited to meat Lou's new girl, Robin. She was very nice and ready to party, and even though she wasn't a very outdoorsy type I think she had a good time. Except for when this weird bug was attacking her.

Lou had the pit for the fire all dug before we showed up. It was around 8 to10 feet across. The bigger the better.

Shortly after we arrived we enjoyed some hors devours. Kim made brunshager or something like that. It's a dip made out of liverwurst. Chris really liked it. Bonnie and Charlie brought rum balls and mince meat pie. We had some chips. It was all good. The best thing was the 15lbs of smoked pulled pork that Lou cooked up for dinner. Kim also made his famous chili. And Lou had his black eye peas in the slow cooker. No one can ever wait for New Years day for them and they get sampled all night.

Soon the Christmas trees were dressed in women's underwear with beer box hats. Then with a big kaboom the fire is lit by dowsing the trees in gasoline and shooting them with roman candles.

Chris was king of the fire till he fell in. Which is a after school special about being intoxicated and making redneck hot air balloons in a fire big enough to cook a man as big as Chris in.

Don't worry. He pushed himself out right away and escaped with only a small burn in the palm of his hand. Which is a good experiment of the effects of adrenaline on intoxicated people. Everyone suddenly wasn't.

This is some of the fireworks that we had that night. They were amazing.

All in all we had a great time and survived into the year 2010. Although the next day we woke up in a van. One of my teachers way back in high school use to love to say. "Your going to end up in a van down by the river."

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Click here to see a video of the fire being started.

http://s372.photobucket.com/albums/oo165/maimom01/?action=view&current=NewYear09057.flv

We've got ducks.

I noticed something splashing around in the pond. Some thing bigger than our usual turtles and black birds.

Turns out it was a duck family. The babies are so..... cute. There were about seven. I think that is a lot for ducks.

I think our little lake is perfect for this type of duck, the red-billed whistling duck. They like shallow water and they eat aquatic vegetation. As you can see from the pictures our lake is full of vegetation. It looks like there is almost no lake left. They also eat insects, snails, larvae, rice, and seeds.

They are usually nocturnal so I was lucky to see them out during the day. The little ducklings were frolicking and playing in the shallow water at the edge of the lake. I guess they were enjoying this cooler weather as much as we were.
I've never heard any ducks quacking and that's because this type of duck, commonly called Wi Chi Chi or Oui Ki Ki, don't quack. They make a high pitched whistle that sounds like their name. Now that I know they are out there, I'm going to be listening for them.

Skadoosh

So... It turns out that in our city you are suppose to get a yard sale permit. Oops. So last blog post was all about an illegal yard sale and apparently yard sales are banned on Sundays. Which is why we had such a poor turn out on that day. Oh well. It was kind of fun and next time we will get that permit.

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day. We decided to stay home and have a fire in the back yard and we smoked a pork butt in our little smoker and had pulled pork sandwiches. MMM.... They were so good. Chris makes this dry rub with all these different spices and things then smokes it all day. But he wont tell anyone what it is in his rub that makes it so good. Later that night my Aunt came over and we sat around the fire and chit chatted for the rest of the night. It was a lot of fun.

Reese's was a little concerned about the fire.

Veronica's foot.

So last night we spent about five hours in the ER because, well mostly because I didn't want anyone saying I was a bad mom.

Veronica fell down the stairs at school the day before yesterday. She did the rest of the day at school and walked home. She looked fine, her foot hurt, but she was fine. I didn't see any reason to panic. But... when I got to work, a lady I work with's daughter also fell down the same stairs a couple of days ago. She rushed her to the hospital and they said something about a growth bone that if it gets injured the bones wont ever grow right so...

(when we got home) off to the hospital we went. Plus Veronica was complaining about the bottom of her foot, not her ankle so I thought well maybe... it was a broken bone. I've heard you can break a bone in your foot and you wont even know till years later when it gives you a problem.

As it turns out it was not a broken bone, or a sprain, she was just fine. Just a bruise on the bottom of her foot. Which is what I knew all along. So THththth...to all those people who thought I was a bad mom for not rushing her into a flu infested hospital full of germs and sickness. Thanks a lot.
Also is there really a bone that if you break it your bones wont grow right? My Aunt Patty said she heard it was in your wrist not your foot.

Never Forget 9/11/01