WORKING ON THE FRONT PORCH

Time to do a little project.  We ordered some furniture for the front porch.

Two boxes, two rockers, a table, some instructions and my cordless drill.  Time to get busy.

This is what they look like and sure enough, about an hour later, we had these:

Two new rockers!

Then another 30 minutes or so and we have a table in between!  We put out our outdoor pillows that I bought at lunch a year or so ago for this very moment.

We love them and we have already spent a few evenings sitting out there watching rabbits, the sun, the birds, just enjoying life.

Next up will be some hanging plants (any suggestions?) and some decorative items.  We are still unpacking boxes (from storage) and so we'll figure out something.  We still have more room on the porch for other things so we shall see how it all turns out but for now, we are so excited and will be spending many hours out here.

GOOD FOOD AND PUPPY DOG SUNDAY

 Wait, what?  

First up, some good food.

This is one of our new favorite treats.  2nd Man found this recipe online and it's our go to now.  Next time, I'll get some pics along the way.  It's made with 00 flour and high protein Greek yogurt.  They are called Pizza di Lengua (or pizza tongues).  They are rolled out thin and cook really fast.  We use passata sauce, part skim mozzarella and turkey pepperoni to make it all heart healthy.  Some fresh basil after it's done.

Who is this?

NO we don't have a dog but we did for a night.  We had some bad storms come through and we heard something at the door.  We looked and saw this sweet (and at the time, wet) face.  Figured she showed up after getting spooked in very loud thunder.  We got her collar and she was chipped with the number on her tags.  They couldn't give us the phone number or owner of course, but they did tell us her name, "Bella" and they said they would reach out to the owner.

We let her stay on the front porch, gave her food (cat food but at least it was food, ha) and some water.  She was full of energy that's for sure, but finally fell asleep (as did we).

A few hours later (early that morning) "R" from 2nd Family called (they are divorced and he lives about a mile down the road).  I thought "why is he calling so early?"  I answered he said "I understand you have my dog?" ha!  What are the odds??

He lives in his own house and she was in the back yard with a newly installed fence but escaped when he let her out to do her business.  He said she's about six months old.  So glad he had her chipped.

Well, if she ever comes back, now we will know where she belongs.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

FREE TREES UPDATE

We blogged HERE about the free tree giveaway back in March when we got them from our local Master Gardening group.

This is the Nuttall oak...it hasn't budded out yet but we're still hoping.  It does seem taller, so there's that.

This is the Shumard oak.  It was the first to leaf out.  So, it's obviously doing well.  For about two weeks it was the only one that had any leaves.  We were most worried about the pecan but...

...this week, we got leaves!  Yay!

We'll keep watering them and they are on the back porch getting watered regularly and cared for.  Then this Fall, when hopefully they are bigger (and leafier), they can go in the ground in a special spot.

We've always loved this quote.  Yes, it's never too late to plant a tree!  We hope we live long enough to see the results but planting a tree can be a lasting thing for future generations to enjoy too.  Win/win!

IT WAS A WORKING OUTSIDE WEEKEND

 I wish I had more pics of before but suffice to say, no mowing for the better part of three weeks with lots and LOTS, of rain, it was out of control.

Here is a great before.  This is part of the side yard next to the well shed.  It was like this all over the yard; front, back, side, driveway etc.

And here is that same spot after.  Much better.

Here's a side yard shot next to the garage.  That's Barnabas, our old mesquite tree.  I need to do some clearing there but the mower can't get closer and there is debris like rocks, etc. that will have to be cleared first (while watching for snakes, ha).

Yep, over two hours on the Zen Machine.  Covered 7.2 miles, ha.  That's because I had to mow a lot of areas first with the mowing deck up so it wouldn't bog down and then mow the same spot again with the deck at normal height.

After mowing, I had to edge and trim.  This is the orchard area, and the mower can't get in between the beds.  But the trimmer works great for this.

Here is the well shed.  After I mowed all around it, I had to edge it to keep it looking neat.  And that is why we had the slab poured to be a little larger than the shed...I can safely edge without damaging the building with the trimmer line. 

Now to get it painted, ha!

But in the end, after mowing AND edging, it looks so much neater.

Here is the back of the house (and our pile of septic excavation dirt that they use to fill in low spots, ha).

Here is the front from the barn/shed area.  Lots of clippings but most of it blew away in the storm that we had come through Sunday night.  

It's done and I feel accomplished.  Now I just need to get into the mindset of remembering that I can mow anytime now, if it looks like extended rain is coming, I can mow on a Wednesday night after work or early Sunday morning.  Or I can edge on Friday night and then mow Saturday evening.  Before, it was a 45 mile drive out here and I had to time it to get back into town and had to pick and choose my yard battles.  Now I'm here for all the battles, ha!

A new strategy awaits! 

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

 Another week has flown by.  We were busy doing stuff after 5pm the last few nights and I didn't get a change to post.  Today we'll have the semi usual post, while I'm outside mowing and edging.  It's a NIGHTMARE because of the rains we've had but hey, we live here now and I can work outside as often as I need to, ha.

Weekend is easy with some roasted chicken and veggies.  We remove the skin before eating of course, but it looks "prettier" for the picture like this, ha.  Carrots, sweet potatoes and beets.

Babygirl loves hanging out on the porch.  She lets us pick her up briefly now, so baby steps. She follows me all over the yard, except when I get the mower and/or trimmer out.  Then she disappears until I'm done, ha.  Understandable.

#catdistributionsystem

OK, time to go outside and get some stuff done before rain comes (again) later this week.

BIRDS ARE OUR NEW THING

 Is it an age thing?  Or a slowing down in life and enjoying nature thing?  Because we are starting to love birdwatching and taking care of the birds around our property since we moved out here!

Went in Tractor Supply the other day (love that store, ha) and they have a whole section devoted to wild birds and everything you could want!

Seed, houses, feeders and everything.  We didn't get much, but we got lots of ideas.

I had already picked up a few feeders at another store and some bird seed (a Texas blend) at the grocery.

We got them hung up in various places.

We repurposed a large canister jar we had at the old farmhouse for use as our birdseed container.  It's got a rubber seal, and we put a scoop in there and it works out perfectly for filling the feeders.

We also have an awesome birdhouse that was made for us and gifted a couple of years back by an amazing friend, so that's our next step, creating specialized bird sanctuary areas.

We have a bunch of books that were given to us by a very sweet friend and these two have already been invaluable and helped us identify quite a few. 

The birds are happy, that's for sure.

And we are happy...

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

 It's been a good weekend.  After Friday of course, when we had another insane rainfall amount (a little over 5").  NO mowing this weekend, which is a shame because it is definitely getting out of control.  

But at least we had some good food.

2nd Man roasted us mahi-mahi and then glazed some carrots in agave syrup.  SO good.

I made an arugula and mixed greens salad with shaved Parmesan, homemade vinaigrette and sunflower seeds.

Caught Babygirl "hiding" behind a weed, ha.  We will be honest though, she does blend in with the grasses and ground at times, ha.

Hope you all are having a good weekend!

WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY

 (This was supposed to post yesterday, but I had the wrong date. We'll leave it as 'Wildlife Wednesday').

So, feeding the kitties means we have some other visitors.  This guy visits almost nightly.

He likes the food and water and he comes late, after the cat(s) have come and gone.

As raccoons do, he washes his paws in the water.

He's ready for his closeup:

We have named him "Floppy the Raccoon".  2nd Man will see the Ring camera alert and say "Floppy is here!"

He's a cutie for sure and that ear just cracks us up.

WE HAD RAIN

 A LOT of rain.

This was a couple of weekends ago. We got about 5 inches of rain in a couple of hours.

We learned where our low spots are.

The backyard has a low spot right here near the well-shed.

Here is the front yard toward the driveway.

Here is a little more of the front yard.

Here is the side of the house near the septic.  The water runs from this side of the property through the front yard and down the sides of the driveway toward the road and speaking of...

...the driveway is high and dry.  Glad they updated that for us during construction.  The water flows down the sides and with the culvert drains they put under it, the water flows under instead of over, so we're happy.

But we had a new thing happen.  This is where the OLD septic tank was.  It was one of those cylindrical ones, small, concrete.  They removed it and filled the hole.  Well, it has settled.  They are coming back out to fill in more dirt for us when everything is finished settling.

The good thing is that when they staked out our house, the surveyor told us we should move the house forward and over a bit so that this area wasn't under the slab (which it would have been).  So we moved it 10 feet each way and sure enough, if this had been under the slab, we could possibly have cracks in the slab.

Anyway, next step is to contact someone to have them see about what we can do for the water.  We don't want to add dirt and have the water move back toward the house.  As it is now, even though it does fill up, it flows away from the house so that's a good thing.

We shall see how things go...

NEW BALL MASON JAR AMERICANA 250

 As usual, I was at lunch, roaming around the store (Walmart) and I stumbled across these jars:

These are the newest limited edition Mason jars from Ball.  You can CLICK HERE to read about them.

Of course, I had to have them for my canning jar collection so I bought one set of each size they have available.

Since my pictures are still in the packages, I found this on the ball website to show you a little clearer.

They were created for the our Nation's 250th birthday celebration this year.  They are really neat with embossed stars all over them and a really cool red/white/blue lid.  Of course, now I'm wondering, since the lids aren't reusable, will they have a special package of them for sale separately?  Or maybe just ALSO sell special lids for this year only.

Ball, if you're listening...

Anyway, a fun addition and only available for a limited time so if you are interested, check them out.

They are at Walmart, Target, grocery stores, etc or of course sell them online HERE AT AMAZON.