Ribbets, Reflections and Rainbows

**A picture happy coffee and a donut post**

Back in the day, (Ha! I always wanted to say that) our county sanitation department would come around every so often and haul off any oversize unwanted stuff that didn't fit in the trash bins as part of our regular garbage service. Somewhere around the time Ms. Olivia (the mail lady) exchanged her personal vehicle for an honest-to-goodness mail truck, the county began charging a fee to haul off the "big stuff". A hefty fee. Personally, I would have appreciated some head's up because as soon as that happened, Freddy Frugality (DH) decided rather than paying any fee, we'd just hang onto our pile "for awhile". Ha. HaHaHA.

The pile grew over time, as things broke and were replaced. For awhile, it bothered me. Then I suddenly found myself enmeshed in the first of a series of medical misadventures: a surprising cancer diagnosis, followed by multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, and Herceptin treatments. After that, pending piles of junk and other such concerns were relegated to the back burner. I just couldn't care about it. Ultimately, I found myself at the point I could barely keep up with a full-time job and family; never mind the things that went with having a house (e.g. both indoor and outdoor things), so I did what I could to get by. I guess you could say I went into survival mode (except maybe it was more like survival of the UNfittest ;o)

As the state of my health declined, so did the state of the house. I kept working full-time, but had to let go of a LOT. The grass grew steadily over the sidewalk. My once pretty flowerbeds, suffering from abandonment issues, became home to a few tangled clumps of weeds. Left to their own devices, those clumps spread like wildfire and grew to alarming heights. Half the time I'd think our house looked like IT was abandoned with all those overgrown weeds. At some point I started narrowing my eyes to slits every time I pulled in the driveway so I couldn't see them anymore. By the time I was diagnosed with Polymyositis (a debilitating muscle disease) a couple of years later, I couldn't walk more than a few feet at a time and the inside of the house had become as badly neglected as the outside. Over the last couple of years as my health has started to improve, I've been working my way - albeit in fits and starts - through the inside. I managed to hit the "indoor floor" running this year (e.g. this post). I'm not finished by a long shot, but things are definitely looking less depressing. This year, I also decided I was finally able to start tackling the outside.
Photo Inset: One of my badly neglected flowerbeds. Embarrassing, but true. *sigh*

Now I may not be a big fan of the labor involved in gardening - I hate weeding [and thank you for your contribution to our struggles, Adam *blows raspberry*] - particularly when you have flowerbeds as neglected as mine, but oh how I do LOVE flowers! I love my flowers even more than DH loves his rustbucket and junk collection. The man actually calls it his yard art. Ha. Maybe he says that because he doesn't want to haul it all away. You think? Guess what, though: A few weeks ago, while deep in thought about what I wanted to accomplish in the yard, I found myself drumming my fingers on the desk as I contemplated a nifty little word on my computer screen than I hadn't thought about in awhile:

Repurpose /rēˈpərpəs/ A verb meaning to adapt for use in a different purpose.

I also learned that when you couple that particular word with, say, Pinterest, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. To wit: Junk, your days are numbered. Mwah-ha-ha-haaa...  That means anything old that isn't nailed down is now Fair Game. What if it is nailed down, you say? Well, then. That's what that little claw thingy on the other side of the hammer is for (and silly you ;o) Naturally, I didn't have a lot of the "desired" junk that came up, but I was willing to work with what we had; copious amounts of junk in general. The UNdesired kind. One thing we did have? A rusted old wheelbarrow with a broken handle. I splurged on the Gerbra; it's the same one from the earlier photo (isn't she pretty?) I bought some seeds, since they were pretty inexpensive. I learned about pre-sprouting, and started some Dwarf Nasturtium on my kitchen windowsill. It did well in little peat pots and [hopefully] it will flourish in the wheelbarrow. Weird note? Apparently Nasturtium grows much better in "poor" soil. Happily, I just happened to have some on hand... 
In spades. 
(ba-dump-bump).

I moved the seedlings outside under the patio roof, but in the sun, for about a week before planting them (photo right).

One thing I found fascinating?  I came across some information that recommended using egg shells instead of peat pots to start plants. I decided to see if it would make any difference and put the next pre-sprouted seed in an egg shell (photo right) instead of a pot (photo left). Looking at the base part of the stems in the two pictures below, I'd have to say that the calcium from the eggshell made a huge difference from the get-go. Look how much thicker it is! Even crazier, the plant on the right is actually a couple of weeks younger than the one on the left. Pretty neat, eh?

My Nasturtium seedlings are now in the wheelbarrow, and I'm waiting (ever so IMpatiently) for them to grow. Hopefully, it won't be too long before they "fill and spill" ;o)

Here's the first of three (count 'em - three) dead yard carts. DH has had about seven or eight years to find replacement wheels for them. *DING* Time's up! ;o) I hit this one with a coat of paint, planted it upside down at an angle, and filled it with the purple heart I rescued from the weeds. It'll look better once it fills in a little more, I hope. One end of DD's old crib provided an interesting background, and I painted it a light sage green. It also helps to hide the *cough* desirable (?) junk we have stashed behind it in the garage. *laugh* I'm hoping to get my hands on some Zebrina Wandering Jew to put in a rectangular planter in that doorway (should be a great color compliment for the purple heart). If and when I do, I'll be sure to take another picture for you! The "stepping stump" in front of the cart is a halved cypress log DD salvaged from a neighbor's trash pile years ago. I'm still working on this section.

The broken stepladder fit perfectly in the bed by the feed room; it's home to some Orange Mint. I found one of my favorite old clay planters hiding under a pile of stuff in the garage: 

DH even got into the spirit of things and made me this awesome super-sized step by the feed room "loading" door using an old poly-whatchamacallit pallet and some inexpensive dog ear fence boards. The plant you see in the foreground was a half-dead African Orchid I rescued from a garden center clearance pile at Wal-Mart for $2. It's amazing how many plants you can find on the cheap. More (lots) on that next time, though. A rusted out piece of [ancient] garden border seemed to work well there (super handy-dandy that rusty is so trendy, eh?) 

I thanked him by giving his old lunch cooler (the one he hasn't used in 20 years) a reason to live. It's now home to some Sweet Alyssum I found for $1 on the DNR cart at Lowe's. It was all brown and sadly shriveled when I brought it home, but it seems to be feeling a bit better. I didn't get the lunch box as centered/straight as I wanted. It was annoyingly awkward to affix *insert alliteration applause* but it doesn't look quite so bad from a bit farther away.

I think that's [more than] enough reading for one day. I'm still working away out there (and in here), and still have a quite a few photos left to share :o) Have a blessed week everyone!

I

I thought this week's post would be shorter than last weeks, but it may not be (apparently I'm quite the chatterbox these days :o) We've been hard at work on the demonstration area, which is [FINALLY] finished. DH bought some concrete to put in the holes for the posts in the patio/seating area a couple of days ago; now he just needs to find the time to actually pour it. We chatted about this as we wandered over to look at the posts which are directly in front of the demonstration area. I looked down as Rickey gestured towards a post while he was talking about the concrete, and look at who I

spotted down the rabbit hole by the bottom of the post. Hint: It's definitely not Alice.
As you can see by the second photo of DD up to her shoulder, that hole is DEEP. Now I know that those itty bitty green guys can climb most any surface and frogs (toads?) can hop fairly far, but I'm not entirely sure about the climbing skills of these regular ribbeters (anybody know?) We pulled him out just in case, and then...
Seriously? Another one? What is this, some kind of multiple mental moment??  So it was a ribbet rescue rerun (but thankfully Big Bertha over there was the only other one - Sheesh).
Now I don't know about you, but my summer is flying by. I keep fantasizing 

about having 36 hour days, except I'm all but face first at the end of my 17 hour ones. I am pretty much a forward thinking person, I don't spend too much time immersed in what was, but sometimes looking back offers some encouragement when you just don't feel like you're getting anywhere. When I think back to a year or two ago I can be thankful that I am still actually standing at the end of my day (considering that for awhile there I could barely walk and needed two hands to lift a gallon of milk compliments of Dermatomyositis).
That Before photo is what it looked like at the top of the pasture when we bought it; more like a junkyard than anything (wow, right?) Then there were the weeds; like something straight out of a Stephen King novel sans alien life forms. Well, unless you count the girls that is...

The horses could (and did) disappear periodically, the weeds were so high. I took the after shot with my camera phone as Shadow and I ambled up the hill the other day. It's not perfect, but I think you can tell we have made some progress. The white dot you see in the distance between the trees is a barrel (and we put that out there on purpose :o). It's in the same area that all that junk was spread over. Now we just have to fix the grass; the guy that owned the land originally planted centipede grass for his horses; which absolutely boggles the mind (if you're wondering, centipede is a very low-growing yard grass that is definitely not suitable for grazing). Big duh there, right? We're still battling weeds, but at least now we can see where everybody is out there. Of course there's always Mickey Mouse roll call in a pinch - I whistle, they whinny (it works for us ;o)

We've finally started getting some rain again, thankfully. It was getting pretty dry around here. We had some pretty heavy rain on Sunday afternoon, and when the rain stopped there was a beautiful double rainbow in our sky. I thought I'd share it with you here and hopefully brighten up your day a bit...

If you would, please pop over to Purina's site and vote for Sheri (the link is in the top right corner of this blog or you can click here). You can vote every day if you like (I have been!) She's completing in a blog-o-spondent contest, and the competition is fierce. Thanks so much for reading and voting and have a wonderful weekend everyone!