Late July Garden Pictures

This Summer here at the homestead has been full of precipitation, we've only had to water a couple of times so far this year.  The gardens have blossomed in the last few weeks of July with regular rainfall and warm, humid conditions.  It has been fantastic weather for growing.

This garden mound was started four years ago and is finally now well established (you can follow the progression from Dirt Delivery and Mound Formation to how it looks today).  There are still some bare spots to fill in way in the back behind the pine tree that have conveniently not been included in the photo.   

The light purple flowers in the left foreground are purple Coneflower (echinacea purpurea).  The middle and background have two monarda - "Purple Rooster" and "Coral Reef".  After taking a few years to get established, the monarda (also known as bee balm) have not only self-seeded to a few more locations in this bed, but also put on a show this year.

The yellow flowers in the middle are "Summer Sun" heliopsis and interspersed are some various annual zinnias and even a handful of marigolds.

This is the front garden bed that faces to the North.  It looks vastly different than it did in mid-June (pictures here), the blue hues of salvias have been replaced by yellow of the "Summer Sun" heliopsis and pale purple of the hosta blooms.  It always amazes me how the same garden bed can look vastly different in a few short weeks.

A Rump Pillow for Snuggling

It was a typical Summer day here at the homestead.  We got some chores done, tidied up some things in the garden, and played in the yard with the dogs.  It was hot outside though, and a rousing game of fetch followed by their afternoon walk took its toll on Shaak Ti and Shadowfax.

This is a pretty standard late-afternoon or early-evening scene around here, with the girls all snuggling together on the floor.  Shaak Ti is usually wedged somewhere.  In this case she's chosen to wedge her head between the couch and Shadowfax's rump.  That's a dangerous spot to be. 

When the bright summer sun saps your strength, the only recourse is to submit to a nice afternoon nap. 

Growing Cucumbers on a Trellis

Our homestead garden here is pretty good size, around 1/3 of an acre.  But even though I have a ton of garden space, there are still limitations and what can go where.  Part of the yard is inside the fence and is the "dog area", it's pretty much off limits for growing edibles. The last thing we need is the dogs helping themselves to a veggie buffet, or worse scuffling over a fallen tomato.

Other areas are too shady, too visible, or not quite right for one reason or another.  Like many gardeners we're left to try to maximize the space that we have, and one of the best ways to this is to grow three dimensionally, as in upwards. We're able to grow six or more cucumber plants - two different varieties, an American Pickling (we use these for our Bread and Butter pickles) and Armenian Cucumber in a strip of soil that is barely a foot wide.

Cucumbers, melons, and some squash can all be grown vertically, using a trellis to train them to grow upwards, dramatically decreasing the footprint of how much ground space is needed.The trellis that we use is just some old wire fencing material that I've bent to allow to hang over the fence.  The bottom edge is pushed into the ground to make it more secure.  In Fall when the plants are done producing I remove the trellis and store it to make it more aesthetically pleasing to not have the wire trellis hanging on the fence all winter.

Worn Out

Shadowfax was plain worn out yesterday afternoon.  She had spent the better part of four hours in the window, watching me work in the garden and mow the lawn. Too much direct supervising can make even the hardiest of managers weary.  Shadowfax eventually ceased her micromanaging and succumbed to a sprawling nap with her head flopped under the desk. 

We aren't too far behind.  In the past few weeks we've been busy around and off the homestead.  We attended the Mother Earth News Fair in West Bend, Wisconsin and got some great information - more on this in a later post, and stopped at a few other places across the Upper Midwest. 

There are so many stories and pictures to share, we've got to get ourselves in gear and relay all the information to you, our glorious readers.  More to come. 

Happy Fourth of July

This is how we'll be celebrating this evening, in high style and with no explosions. 

The Fourth of July is one of those holidays when we're very happy to have deaf dogs.  Unlike hearing dogs, who can hear and be very traumatized by fireworks sounds, our deaf dogs have no reaction at all to fireworks.  We'll probably be in bed before they start the formal fireworks display here in Grand Forks and the neighborhood goes wacky setting off their own personal displays. 

Window Watcher

The forecast yesterday was for a 70% chance of high squirrel activity, with a strong likelihood of bunny shenanigans in the afternoon.  As such, Shaak Ti was on high alert all day. "I see you out there Mr. Squirrel".

This couch is out on the front porch and is the only piece of furniture that the dogs are allowed on.  Shaak Ti makes the most of this whenever we're out on the front porch and spends time staring out the window, napping, or snuggling with Alycia. 

Family Unit Day - 2016

We celebrated our first official Family Unit Day on June 24, 2008.  It marked the one year anniversary of Shaak Ti coming into our lives and represented the day we became one family unit.  The addition of Shadowfax in 2010 didn't change the date of Family Unit Day, it's still an amalgamation of all the dogs birthdays and adoption days.  We take a moment on this day to appreciate each other (OK Tito probably doesn't appreciate me) and reflect fondly on the incredible years we've had together. 

Shaak Ti has been in our lives for 9 years now.  That makes her likely around 10 years old, and she hasn't slowed down much.  She's still an attention starved, never-ending well of pets, and starts every day at 4:45 am, raring to get out in the world and chase those pesky bunnies and squirrels. 

Shadowfax is all about celebrating Family Unit Day, but only to the extent that it doesn't interfere with her getting to play outside.  As you can tell by the look on her face, preparing this blog post is clearly getting in the way of my taking her outside to play and she's none too happy about it. 

We know how to ring in an exciting celebration around here. 

Early Summer Garden Pictures & Garden Tour Panic

We're just a few days away from the official start of Summer.  The gardens here are in full swing with late Spring and early Summer blooms at their peak. 

This is the west side of our house.  The prolific white flowers are a naturalizing daisy that we got from a friend of Alycia's.  These daisies have been more than happy to self-seed and fill in the empty spaces.  They honestly spread a little too aggressively, but they're pretty easy to thin out or pull completely in the spaces that we don't want them, and the little white flowers with yellow centers are very cheery. 

The Grand Forks Garden Tour is this weekend, and Alycia and I were looking forward to a leisurely and casual tour of some of the gardens in town.

Until we found out that not one, but two of our neighbors are stops on the garden tour.  We had to spring into action and get the homestead ready for passersby who would be checking out our flowers on the way to the official garden tour stop just down the block.  This is the front of the house, hostas surrounded by different salvias.

There was literally only one days warning.  We read on Friday in our local paper about the Garden Tour and almost jumped out of our chairs when we noticed that two participants' names were our neighbors.  Anybody who was somebody in the local gardening scene might be walking by, we had to make everything look its best.  The pots and plantings on our front step look ready for random people to admire as they pass by. 

I stopped by the neighbors house and (after giving her a whole bunch of grief about not warning us sooner) asked if she needed any help.  It should be a busy weekend in our little neighborhood - along with the garden walk is a Historical Society Tour and a 12 hour marathon Relay for Life in the park.  Good thing we got our gardens ready!

Petunia Tower

I was picking up my friend a few weeks back since he has a pickup and agreed to go with me on a horse manure run.  As I stopped by his house, he was out chatting with a next door neighbor who had built a pretty awesome vertical tower that was planted with petunias. 

I was inspired and decided to build a petunia tower of my own.  I took a length of hardware cloth (aka chicken wire), formed it into a cylinder and added it to the middle of an old metal washtub that we had picked up at a garage sale for $5. 

I linked the hardware cloth together with some spare pieces of wire I had laying around and made sure that the cylinder was very secure.  This would keep it from collapsing and the contents spilling out.  I cut holes in spots and placed half-lengths of pots in the holes at a 45 degree angle to hold the petunias on the side of the tower.  The majority of the cylinder is filled with mulch (free from the mulch yard) and then the planting areas were filled with a mix of planting soil and horse manure. 

The top of the petunia tower is planted with a lovely rich purple variety called Johnny Flame - it seemed appropriate.  There's enough soil at the bottom of the tub holding the tower in place, and the weight of the mulch in the cylinder is more than enough to keep the whole thing upright.  I'm not worried about structural integrity or the tower tipping over. 

This will continue to fill in as the petunias grow, I'll be sure to post additional pictures as the season wears on and this becomes a tower of pinks and purples. 

Important Birthday

Many of our good readers have no idea that your fearless blogger just celebrated a milestone birthday. Yes, not only does John build hills in our backyard, he is now officially over the hill himself.

I tried (and subsequently failed) to keep a surprise party from John. He was not at all willing to play along with the charade and honestly seemed to enjoy making me clumsily spin an intricate web of lies. 

We had a lovely sushi dinner with people friends.

Which was followed by some yummy gluten free cupcakes. 

Sasquatch was there as well. 

In various forms. 

John received some fun presents, notably Sasquatch LEGO's...

and Simpsons LEGO characters. 

My parents just dropped off all of my LEGOs from childhood, so there were plenty for John to play with. I was keen on the castle sets when I was a kid...

John also received a couple nice weeding implements from my parents. Perhaps the present he was most excited about though was the one he bought himself: the Weed Dragon. 

Look it up if you can't figure out what it does, you will be impressed.  We will definitely post pictures (and maybe videos) when we fire up the Weed Dragon.

Not to worry, this will obviously be used responsibly since John is officially a grown up now. 

Ovenbird

I was sitting on the front porch a few days back enjoying a warm Spring morning, watching the usual birds on the feeders and on the lookout for any cool or new arrivals.  Even though he wasn't super spectacular, this little fellow caught my eye.

Can you find him?

How about now?  Here's a close up of the previous picture.  It took me a bit of research and some serious watching of this little bird to pin down an identification.  This is an ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), the only member of the seiurus genus.  It gets its name from the nest it builds on the ground, a small woven nest that people thought resembled a Dutch Oven.

The ovenbird is mostly terrestrial, it stays on the ground rooting through leaves, or in our case mulch.  They are very similar to thrushes in appearance, but their terrestrial habit and close inspection of coloration make an identification possible.

I was pretty happy to be able to identify this new feathered friends.  It isn't the most colorful or dynamic bird, but it's always fun to identify a new garden visitor. 

Bergeson Nursery in Fertile, Minnesota

Over the weekend we made our annual visit to Bergeson Nursery in Fertile, MN. My mom and dad also came along to see what goodies they could find.  They did not leave empty-handed.

We spent an hour and a half there, and picked out a bunch of new perennials and some eye-catching annuals for our flower boxes. 

Even with a wagon load of flowers, our bill was less than we thought (actual amount not disclosed), which we thought was a big win. Our perennials are starting to mature so our annual flower budget is finally starting to decrease. I think this really might be the year that all of our flower areas look really filled in. Stay tuned for pictures...

Pileated Woodpecker

This handsome/pretty pileated woodpecker showed up at our feeder this morning.

We saw pileated woodpeckers almost daily for a two month-long stretch last year and were really hoping that they would return to the homestead again this year.  We'd also heard them in the neighborhood on our morning dogs walks - their rapping on trees is very distinctive. 

The feeder that the woodpecker is snacking on has peanut butter suet balls.  We've experimented with numerous kinds of suet over the years and have settled on this kind, which they seem to really enjoy. 

After having a suet snack, the woodpecker foraged for some bugs on the ground and then flew off. 

Spring Birds and Wild Spring Weather

Spring is officially here in North Dakota.  Trees have started breaking buds, hostas are up, and various plants are about to start throwing off flowers.  This time of year is especially glorious since there are no mosquitoes (not yet), so we can work in the garden without the annoyance of biting mosquitoes. 

For us the change to Spring is marked by the birds that begin arriving at the homestead, some just passing through, some to stay for the duration of Summer.  The American Goldfinches arrived just a few days ago.  We love their high-pitched chirps and striking yellow, they truly brighten up the garden. 

The American Goldfinches show up suddenly, and usually in sizeable numbers.  We go from seeing one or two, to seeing dozens in a matter of just a few days. 

The Rose Breasted Grosbeaks also showed up yesterday.  In similar fashion to the American Goldfinches, they go from one or two to bunches in a matter of days.  Sadly the Rose Breasted Grosbeaks are just passing through, they'll stay for a few weeks, then move along.  At least a few of the goldfinches will stay with us though through the Summer. 

Even though it was 90+ degrees just a week ago, Spring here is temperamental.  Today being Friday the 13th, Mother Nature tried to put on an eerie show.  A cold wind started overnight and a morning rain shower turned to snow.  Brief but intense snow showers and a brisk wind have continued throughout the day.  A hard freeze is forecast for tonight and I have a few petunias, sweet alyssum, and dianthus that I need to cover.  Hopefully this is the last freeze or frost for the Spring. 

Grand Forks Dog Jog

On Saturday Alycia participated in the Grand Forks Dog Jog, a 5k jog/walk fundraiser for the Circle of Friends Humane Society. Given that all of our dogs are somewhere on the neurotic scale (some more than others), it was not even a possibility that any of them would be invited to come along.

Instead, Alycia got to borrow Luna, the long-haired dachshund owned by Kelly of our local pet food store - Treat Play Love.  Whenever we visit the store, Alycia gets her special "Luna Time" and holds her while John gets to lug heavy sacks of dog food. Luna is a therapy dog and is probably the best suited dog for that job that we've ever known. She loves to be held and snuggled. 

There were probably a couple hundred dogs at the Dog Jog on Saturday, and Luna wanted nothing to do with them before the race started. She wanted to be up in Alycia 's arms out of the fray. 

Here's the pre-race photo. 

While there was some concern about whether Luna would walk the entire 5K, we needn't have worried. Luna was a champion and nearly ran the entire race. She just needed a little help on one short uphill climb. We even ran the last bit to the finish line, posting what I consider to be a respectable time for a mini dachshund of 52 minutes. 

Here's our post-race photo. You can see her eyes are a bit sleepy. She sat down immediately after crossing the finish line and received her well-deserved belly rubs. 

Seeds Started Indoors

I started some seeds a few weekends back, the anticipation of Spring is palpable and I can't wait to actually start planting things in the ground.  The weather over the last week has been Spring-like, highly variable, windy, and alternately cool and warm.  I've been able to get out and work in the garden quite a bit, but it's just isn't the same as being able to plant something.

Here's our set up for starting seeds indoors.  I have a multi-level wire bakers rack with two shop lights on each level.  We don't use warming mats or anything that fancy. Between the heat from the lights and turning up the thermostat a little bit in the room, it's warm enough for good germination. 

Tomato plants, growing by leaps and bounds every day. Pumpkins, squash, gourds, and cucumbers also grow quickly and vigorously.  There are also some other veggies and flowers growing in there. Perhaps we'll make our first trip to a local greenhouse and be able to plant a few flowers next weekend.