Hidden in the Armpits

Meanwhile, up in the mystery garden, hidden in the armpits of this undetermined plant was...
...the beginnings of Brussels sprouts!
The nubs are sever-so small but should keep growing into those delicious mini-cabbage heads that Will (and now me) love so much. All summer, we have pretty much ignored the mystery garden, waiting to see what was revealed in time. We thought we had broccoli. We determined we have numerous carrots. We devoured all the lettuce leaves. And now, I guess it is safe to say that yet another mystery of the mystery garden is now solved: Brussels sprouts identified!

Unsupervised in the Garden

Will, left unsupervised in the garden and enjoying a whole weekend of digging in the dirt, surprised me yesterday. I could hear him grunting and moving and sawing and digging, but paid no attention as I was busy wiping and cleaning and scrubing and organizing my kitchen cabinets and drawers. Finally, I took a break and went outside to see what Will was doing.

He was building a path in the Victory Garden:

He had edged it with the wood left over from the fence that was replaced three years ago that, to my chagrin, he saved. And if you are counting, he has reused that wood thusly: 1. to make trellis for our peas & beans (currently in use in the Victory Garden), 2. redoing the brick patio by using it for edging, 3. edging down along the flower bed by the other side of the house, 4. built shelves with it that currently are holding lots of potting materials, 5. the supports for the terraced herb garden, and now a sixth reuse of the wood. Not that the constant reusing of the wood has not be pointed out to me again and again.... Ahem. I think I learned my lesson, that saving wood can be very useful in deed.

Stirling helped with the laying out of the weed control mats.
And Dali, visiting for the week, supervised the whole operation. Being a poodle, she did so without getting dirty.

The path goes around the vegetable patch we have. Will edged in the roses, the lilies, the raspberries & blueberries, and the terraced herb garden.
We went to Lowe's and got 15 bags of decorative pebbles (each 40 lbs!) to dump into the path and then a few spare flagstones that Will also had laying about were added. The finished path is quite fantastic! It looks so nice and, now, all the plants down there are easily accessible--very important when wanting fresh golden raspberries or basil.



And you wanna know something else? There is plenty of wood left for Will to build me a trellis for the roses to go over the steps into the victory garden. Use number 7 for the old fence. He tells me that will be a while in coming. In the meantime, we will just enjoy taking short walks on our new path.

1, 2 Pick Up Sticks

I have had that children's rhyme in my head all day long... Will decided to have an organization of the kindling pile. He snipped, snapped, and separated it into one pile and three buckets of varying size bark and sticks-- all the perfect size for starting a fire.

Now we know for sure that there is nothing living in the wood pile and we have plenty of kindling for the winter.

3, 4 shut the door...

Bedside Pretty

Will brought me coffee and one of our roses as a good morning wake-up call. It was a lovely way to start a holiday weekend. You will have to believe me about the coffee, since you can only see the rose in the photo. I was drinking it at the time of the photo...

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Hope you have a wonderful day!!

XO!

Leading A Dog To Water

Being an incredibly hot day at the arboretum, we did not need to convince Stirling that cooling down in the lake was a good idea. She basically ran down the banks practically jumping into the lake, not caring that there was a small child feeding the fishes with Saltines. She, in fact, tried to also eat the Saltines. Or, at least, I hope she was after the cracker and not the fish....



With all that black fur, you could see steam rising off her as she got in and out of the water.

And who needs a towel when you have unmowed grass?


We drove home with wet dog. Stinky wet dog, to be exact, since that water was not exactly fresh. We had to dip into our baby pool when she got home to get rid of the lake smell. Um, lake smell. Delicious.

National Arboretum

We took Riise to the National Arboretum over the weekend.... and it was hot. Baking hot. We still powered through the bonsai exhibits. The dog, not allowed in the with the bonsais, waited out front with Will.


We wondered around looking for trees that have been in training since our birth years. I about cried when Riise pipes up: "I was born in 1990." What? I was in high school. Man, I felt instantly old. Maybe not as old as some of the trees, but close.

We decided not to walk to the columns that originally were on one of the wings of the Capitol Building. From a distance, they were prettier, and we had more important things to do.

Like find the pup some water....