How Does Your Garden Grow??

Very well thank you!! Every morning, the hubby, my son and I check the garden to see what's new or what's gotten a little bigger. It's all doing so well. Waiting for the fruit's of our labor is the hard part. We have been enjoying our lettuce for a couple weeks now. We have two green bell peppers getting bigger each day...they are so cute! The corn is getting tall, the peas are starting to climb, the beans are all up, the zucchini squash plant is taking over one of our whole gardens(I think he needs a bit more room than we gave him!), and the carrots and celery are looking good!! AND more strawberries are beginning to ripen and grow. We seem to have kept the critters away for now with our traps and netted coverings. I hope so...can't wait to taste those precious strawberries.

More strawberries!!

The corn and orange bell peppers!
Carrots!
Lettuce and strawberries!
The zucchini squash is over taking the whole box...my green bell peppers in the foreground.
Celery and onions!
See that BEAUTIFUL baby green bell pepper! He's so cute!
More strawberries!!!
So how is your garden growing???

Back from Colorado!

I took a last minute trip to Colorado last week to watch Bella and Dylan so their mommy and daddy could paint their new house. My son bought his first house and it needed to be repainted inside and a few other minor repairs. I watched these two and their 1-1/2 yr. old cousin and enjoyed spending time with them. Grandma had some quality craft and playdough time with Ms. Bella. Dylan is just a sweetie and loved me reading books to him. We took walks and trips to McDonald's and Burger King for lunch and play time. We stayed out of everyone's way. It was exhausting but oh so much fun! I didn't take many photos because I was busy......however, I couldn't get away with no photos so here are a few I took to make myself happy for a couple months until I see these sweet faces again!

Bella made a sign for grandma! I put it in my kitchen to look at each day!

We made chocolate chip cookies for daddy one night. They were such a big help and loved licking the beaters! Notice the princess crown!!

He's saying cheese! I wanted him to smile for me...he's too cute!

This girl is so photogenic and she does the cutest poses...love her hands here.

We got daddy in on our photo session in their new backyard. Then he had to go back and unload the truck full of their stuff to put in the new house!

Dylan enjoying grandma's Kit Kat treats!

Miss Bella too...chocolate just takes you away to another place! Haha!

She just loved running around their yard...they have a lot of birds and squirrels in the nearby trees.

Bella and I loved the pinecones in this tree and it reminded me of a photo taken by my friend, Nina Diane at Just Enjoying Life.

I'm back home now and missing my sweet grandchildren. It was so much fun and wore me out that I ended up taking a 4 hour nap yesterday! Now back to the grind!

They did it again....

Those darn little critters came between midnight(yes, I checked before I went to bed) and 6:30am and took my bait strawberry. They had a little struggle though...a few small pieces and left behind and some stain where they got thru the netting. Yes....they ate thru at three places. So Hubby is onto plan two and is at Lowe's right now getting more ammo to keep those little buggers out of my garden. It's not bunnies...there are no poop pellets anywhere. We suspect a small mouse or rat. We have the kangaroo rats in the area.

It's all out war!!

The garden is coming along...we've eaten our lettuce and it's pretty yummy! We have strawberries growing or we did...something is eating them...so we had to build a cover as you can see in this photo.

The green peppers are coming along nicely.

So are the carrots...aren't they cute??
Six of our nine green bean plants sprouted but if you look closely...something has chewed on these too.
So we are protecting our three strawberries that are trying their best to grow so that we can taste their sweetness. See the three strawberries in the right box.

Here's what it looks like close up.
Here's the other one protecting more of my strawberries. Let's see if we are going to win this war and be able to harvest our strawberries instead of feeding some unknown critter.

We set a trap....a store bought ripe strawberry to see if the little critters can get in under our cover.
That is one good looking strawberry, if you ask me. I want to know who's eating my strawberries. I hope he gets in and then gets stuck so we can see who it is. Stay tuned...I'll let ya know what we find out! It's all out war!!

California Poppies

The California Poppies are in full bloom and they are gorgeous. We were on our way to my niece's baby shower and I just had to stop and admire them with Mason and Danielle. The hills and surrounding area have patches of these everywhere right now. They even have a preserve that you can go to with a lot more than this. This is the California state flower and you can't pick them or dig them up. I did find out you can get seeds and plant your own if you want.

Mason & his Great Grandma Lenie

Mason and I took a trip out to see Dwight's mom today. She lost her husband of 67 years 3 months ago and is doing real well. She loves company so we went over to her home today and Mason had lunch at the counter like a big boy with his great grandma. What a special treat for both of them. I love the photos....Enjoy!

Mason's personality is sure coming out and he's just so stinking cute and funny! Have a great day!

Look at what I've Been Up To!!

Look!! Look!! Our garden is growing and we city folk are so tickled about it! The Hubby and I enjoy checking to see what's new each day and my son and his girl friend are excited too. Who would have thought a garden could be so entertaining? We can't wait to taste our strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, peas, beans, carrots, squash, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and corn.

I've been outside these last couple weekends with a project encouraged by all those handy bloggers who love spray paint. I took on my patio furniture(6 chairs, 1 large table, 1 small table and two foot stools) which was green and still in good shape. I wanted a new brown set. So after 13 cans of Rustoleum Universal Advanced Formula All-Weather paint in Brown Hammered. This was an ambitious first project since I've never spray painted much in my life but I DID it!! I experienced a very sore finger and thumb after the first weekend and finally got the hang of holding the can and spraying. I had to go over all the metal a few times to make it look good. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I love the end result and figured I saved half of what it would have cost me for a new one with all the same features. I did buy new cushions at Target.

This is the before:
This is the after:
I absolutely love it!! I am going to enjoy my summer in my backyard with my new patio furniture. What do you think?? If I can do this, anyone can!