Boyett-Brinkley: 05/26/14

Monday, May 26, 2014

Into the Garden

Yesterday was another day spent tweaking the garden. We live in a garden home but our yard is as large as it was in our former, traditional house. We live on a wedge shaped lot which creates a lot of back and side yard but not much front yard. We are fortunate that we do not have to maintain the yards, that is done through our HOA dues and the yards, front and back, are mowed and trimmed once a week. That was one of the attractions of living here because my husband doesn't mind gardening but mowing is not his activity of choice. We do have to maintain our flower beds ourselves, however. When the subdivision was built, the landscaper that the builder used put in lots of beautiful plants. It was gorgeous when they were all small but as they grew, many of them were just too large for the space in which they were placed. Plus, the houses on this end of the subdivision were built on solid rock and the soil depth isn't, well, deep so lots of things have been lost. The one thing we can't get rid of is the bermuda grass that keeps coming up in one of the front flower beds. We are working on that but refuse to do anything with those beds until the grass is gone.

Anyway, yesterday was the day to tackle the front flower bed. We lost a Hawthorn bush that needed to be removed. The Creeping Charlie wasn't creeping very well, in fact, it looked like it had crawled to it's death and the whole thing just needed to be raked out. We decided that once Charlie was gone and the bush was no more, we would just add a bunch of Skullcap. It has done well everywhere we have put it and I thought it would lend itself to the "unmanicured" look I prefer. I also thought it would complement the Dianthus. At the end of today, we will probably be moving a couple of the plants around to make room for a deep purple Crepe Myrtle to break up the expanse of house wall. So, what do you think?

plants going in -- bed still looks a little rough

my husband loves to use jigs so he devised a way to measure for each plant to get them spaced correctly as they went around a curve

looking better

After the planting and the addition of mulch and Bernard Bunny

from the driveway -- nice play off the Dianthus

an update on the growth progress of the purslane in the blue pots

and the other pot

The day was humid in the morning and progressed to being very hot but at the end, after the planting and mulching, we had a lovely rain that resulted in this stellar rainbow. Isn't it lovely?

so vibrant

it was so large you could see both ends -- just no pot of gold!

this was when it first appeared

Friday at Homestead Farms or You Ain't Been Kissed 'til You've Been Kissed by a Goat!

This past Friday was a fun day to visit Homestead Farms in Keller, Texas. It was story time and craft day and what a beautiful day it was for it. The Farris family runs such a delightful operation there at Homestead Farms and it was just made all the better with the addition of Meredith Lyons from Barefoot Books. Miss Meredith read a very appropriate story -- The Little Red Hen -- positioned right in front of the hen house. After the story, the kiddos were invited to participate in a craft -- making their own "little red hen". The piece de resistance was the pen of baby goats just waiting to be petted. I know my granddaughter's one wish was to be able to pet a goat and that she did. I think she could have stayed there all afternoon just playing with them and I have to say they loved it as well. One of the larger baby goats was very friendly and very affectionate. After a lengthy head-patting session I think it just wanted to return the affection and gave my granddaughter a big lick on the arm. There was surprise all around -- granddaughter jumped and when she jumped so did the goat. Guess their ain't no kiss like a goat kiss! The visit wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Homestead Farms Store where we bought some more of their fantastic tamales, pork chops and the biggest yellow squash you have ever seen. I wish I had taken a photo of it but I came home and cooked it up immediately. It was superb! I will be checking for more this Friday.

So, here are some photos from the day and contact information for Miss Meredith. She was delightful, the turnout was fantastic and the kids just all had a wonderful time.