Fall Begins

September 18, 2009 at 5:22 pm | In Big Green Froggie, Family, Wildlife | 2 Comments

I’m looking forward to yanking everything out of the garden, but there are still loads of green tomatoes all over the plants. Plus one green bell pepper. And lots of white birds egg gourds. And two small watermelons that I doubt will amount to anything (after all, it is mid-September.) While I was in there the other day I was startled to find myself face to face with this lovely:

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As Paul said, “You can see why a plague of these would be frightening.”

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This week was an exciting one for us as Clark started his second year of nursery school.  He’s going three days a week this year and happily he loves school and is never reluctant to go or part with me (but is happy  to return home, which is nice.)  I admit to enjoying the chance to have a little time alone with Tabitha on those mornings. We putter about and play together and it’s very nice.  Here we all are on Clark’s first day:

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This morning I was out by the pond checking out the cattails and I was surprised to see this small frog sitting in a plant. he appears two toned.

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When I was a kid I recall lighting cattails and calling them “punks.” I’ve been wanting to do that with ours and see if my memory of it making a nice smell is correct or not.  I picked one apart and had indeed forgotten just how soft the inside is. When I look at this I think it looks just like the fur of my dear beloved rabbit, Hazelnut.
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Paul and I have been watching Mad Men and I am fascinted by Betty Draper and what being a mom meant in that time and place.  I love how beautiful and put together Betty looks and sometimes wish I had that glamour in my day. But let’s be honest, I’m happy I can wear jeans every day! Also happy that I don’t need to feed and bathe my kids and put them to bed, all before my husband comes home and I have to serve him his own separate dinner in a beautiful setting.

This and That

September 10, 2009 at 1:27 am | In Big Green Froggie, Botanical Photos, Chickens, Gardening, Sewing | 2 Comments

I’ve been so slow about posting lately (I have quite a backlog of books to do over at The Last Book I Read), but I suppose in part it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of sewing and hobby stuff lately, dealing with a mysterious fever Clark had (swine flu? Lyme disease? It went away and he’s fine), and throwing myself into the change of season. I’m so ready to embrace apple picking, jean wearing, apple eating, and so on.  Clark goes back to preschool next week and he’s quite excited about it, as am I for him.

So here’s a rundown of pictures of note and such.  First, another bee top for Tabitha.  It turned out too large, but since it is summery I decided not to alter it, but to save it instead for next summer. This was my first time making real pleats, which came out pretty well.

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In progress: sewing a tote bag

In progress: baby quilt for my dear friend’s baby, who was born today.  I’ve got the top and bottom tied together and am going to embroider today’s date and the baby’s name on it now and then bind it.  Here’s the top after it was pieced together:

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The change in sunrise/sunset and daylight hours is very apparent in the chickens’ laying behavior.  During the summer (and as recent as 2 weeks ago) by 9am all 9 eggs would have been laid.  However, now they are laying much later in the day and I didn’t get all the eggs today until mid-afternoon. One of the ladies:

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Our ladies, by the way, are completely people friendly and always on the lookout for treats. They run up to cars that pull in the driveway.  If you call out “here chick chick!” one will run and then all the others will follow.  If you are sitting on the front porch, one or two might hop right up there to see what’s going on.  They are a delight.

Cooler days are very pleasant for Big Green Froggie-he’s been spending quite a bit of time out on the patio.  He was in the pond, though, the other day when a hen fell into the pond! The hen turned out to be fine-I ran outside and scooped her up and wrapped her in a towel.

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We saw some interesting fuzzy caterpillars yesterday.

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Check out the teeny tiny grippy feet that help it hold on to this thick piece of grass:

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And here is Tabitha making the face she does when she says “Nooooooo”  Ever since she finally started saying Clark’s name (“Clark-Clark”) she says it all the time.  It’s especially funny when she says “Clark Clark No!”, as she is here. By the way, neither of us has ever said “Clark-Clark”, so I don’t know why she does.

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In the front the squash plants have run amok, reaching out like a sash across this tree:

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What’s neat is the tiny tendrils that reach out to whatever they can and grab on, holding up this big vine and its big leaves and blossoms:

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Here is Clark standing next to a very tall…plant.  I am holding out hope that it is going to be a beautiful flower (I did plant a lot of seeds here), but I think it just might be a spectacular weed. The other tall plants are zinnias. The black thing behind the plants is our new composter, which Clark won at the Somerset County 4H Fair! Very exciting. We are thinking that by having it closer to the house (and it doesn’t smell, so why not?) we will be more likely to empty our compost into it daily.

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Hoping to finish the bag and quilt in the next couple of days, and will certainly have some updates then.

I see you…

April 27, 2009 at 1:38 pm | In Big Green Froggie | 2 Comments

(Liz, don’t read this post!) Yesterday was ridiculously hot. So hot the frogs didn’t even try to hop away as we played outside near the pond. They also didn’t bask in the sun, but took refuge in a cool leafy spot.

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Before he hopped out:

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And here is the other one resting in the water:

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Record Highs!

April 26, 2009 at 12:26 am | In Big Green Froggie, Botanical Photos, Family, Gardening, Wildlife | Leave a Comment

It was in the 80s today, giving us a day that felt like we were smack in the middle of summer. It was quite fun and we spent much time outside playing on the slip n’ slide and such.  Of course Clark had to take all his clothes off.  It was weird that it was hot, but there was no shade–because the trees don’t even have their leaves yet! And weird to have it be hot and be looking at tulips and daffodils!

I rigged up some stakes and twine to give the peas something to jump onto, and look how clever these little tendrils are.  I did this two days ago and they are already reaching and wrapping on:

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Along our driveway we have some lovely clumps of daffodils we planted a couple years ago.  I like the varieties:

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I wish we had tulips en masse as well, but we only have a few groups we’ve planted (which seem to be groups of 2 or 3), as well as a whole bunch of oddly single ones.  Several of these I’m sure we never planted ourselves, such as this lone magenta one that has not a single other flower near it:

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Here’s a lovely red one that also stands in isolation:

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Here are a few beautiful ones that I know I planted. They are so frilly I think they look like peonies or roses:

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A couple days ago I noticed a beautiful flower in this sort of messy front area that has been, frankly, an annual struggle for us.  I investigated and there was a beautiful teeny little shrub with a few flowers and lots of buds on it.  I didn’t remember planting anything there, but further investigation showed that the tag had been left on the plant and then I remembered, ahhh yes, I’d planted a flowering quince there in the fall.  I do hope it gets a lot bigger because right now it’s fairly invisible unless you are standing right there.

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So, on to the family fun.

Tabitha gets up close with the slip n’ slide:

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Tabitha runs off and climbs up on the tractor (I feel like between the grass and the forsythia our backyard just looks like it was created by John Deere.  This is only reinforced by the tractor being left out there.)

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Clark slips ‘n slides:

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It was a lovely unseasonable day, topped off with dinner outdoors.

And finally, some local wildlife.  Paul got a great picture the other day of the white deer which lives at the end of our road:

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And our Big Green Froggie and friend (who this year is equally as large) have been spending much time out of the pond.  They still will only let me take pictures through the kitchen window (rats!).  We’ve heard them making their wonderful loud bass froggie sounds (“jiggerum” is what my mom says). Click here and scroll down a little bit to hear what it sounds like!

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Welcome (and unwelcome) Signs of Spring

March 8, 2009 at 2:42 pm | In Big Green Froggie, Family, Gardening | 3 Comments

Yesterday it was almost 70 degrees! We spent much of the day outdoors puttering around the yard and enjoying the balmy weather. Unwelcome activity? Picking up all the dog poop in the yard. Ugh. (We have vowed that we will attempt to train him to only go in the woods beginning shortly.) As we slowly walked around the yard, what was laying in the wait for me in the grass? SNAKES. I swear they were the same two as last year when the same thing happened. There were two, in the exact same place. Only this year they were bigger (last year they were literally the size of pencils.) I screamed and ran away and Paul, Clark, and Pippin had a wonderful time looking at them and taking pictures.  Later in the day as I was filling all the bird feeders I encountered another one. So that’s three unwelcome signs.

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Welcome signs? A few more yellow crocuses are blooming for one thing, and I raked out tons of leaves and uncovered many more bulbs pushing forth.  We also did some cleanup in and around the pond and came across two more welcome signs: our fish and our frog! They have survived the winter yet again (amazing how that works) and we saw glimpses of a couple fish and later in the day from inside the house we saw Big Green Froggie’s head poking up. Update: we  just saw his head poking out and this fish, too, and I got a picture. From inside the house, but it’s proof!:
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Perhaps the most delightful sign of spring is this: Clark stripped naked, filled his wheelbarrow with water, added it to dirt to make mud, and ran around the yard looking like he was wearing brown pants he was so covered in mud.

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Another update: TWO Big Green Froggies have emerged!! And one was laying in his old favorite pot. So excited to see them. They’re pretty jumpy so I’ve only gotten a picture from the kitchen window so far. When it gets sunny and warm they’ll be lounging pond side on the patio.

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A Mishmash of a Post

June 24, 2008 at 2:39 pm | In Basic Musings, Big Green Froggie, Gardening | 3 Comments

Many thanks to Paul for my lovely new banner. From left to right: Tabitha with her big open mouth, blooming spiderwort, my awesome husband Paul, looking up underneath our gorgeous Japanese maple tree, Clark being a daredevil, a blooming peony, and me in front of Lake Erie.

I just haven’t posting as much as I’d like to lately, in part because I’ve been caught up in getting ready for a conference next week, and also things are sort of status quo in the garden. That said, I’m delighted that my Shasta daisies are blooming. And now that I think about it, things have changed I just haven’t photographed it! I’m really putting some effort into planning my front perennial garden to make it like a nice full cottage garden.

I’m going to transplant this huge rudbeckia which I don’t recall planting and think must have occurred naturally. A close up:

Growing next to this is a nice looking big coneflower plant which is literally growing out of the driveway. Obviously I didn’t plant it here and am hoping to successfully transplant it to the front garden.

I made some strides last year and last week we added several more plants. I’ve been reading Ralph Snodsmith’s Tri State Gardener at night and making notes about perennials I’d like to add, as well as how to care for my plants a little better.  Between that and the other garden blogs I’ve been reading I’ve realized I need to much more aggressively deadhead everything, so I’ve been heading out every day doing that. I’m also weeding a lot more than I used to because it’s easy to do with Clark around. In fact, he even helps me and informed me “I love weeding!”.

A look back at last year’s photos shows that by now the lilies in the pond were blooming and they still haven’t this year. The pond plants overall look great, but who knows what’s going on in there. We haven’t seen big green froggie in weeks, yet the little froggie is now a medium froggie and we see him quite a bit.

I’ve transplanted a lambs ear type thing that came from my friend’s mom’s garden two years ago.  If it’s not a weed it’s very much like one because it spreads like crazy.  Although it looks dead right now I’m sure next year it will be doing very well in that front garden.  I wish I’d know how crazy big the Russian Sage was going to get-it’s front and center and large and sprawling and really should be toward the back.

Things are just super hectic here right now. The next post will likely be about making Clark’s birthday cake-a train!

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