Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

[lorihadams]

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. We've been busy around here. The ducks are getting big and starting to feather out nicely. We are having to move them to fresh grass daily now. The second batch of 6 replacement mallards are doing well and should be big enough to go out with the rest this weekend and we can get started on the shelving for the garage.

We had our final inspection and it failed. Looks like in the midst of my husband "helping" the electrician 4 of the outlets got wired backwards and won't trip the ground fault indicator. So the electrician is coming back out this evening to fix it. The inspector is coming out tomorrow to redo the final and it should pass okay, which is good cause then we can get the money from the bank and pay off the construction costs we had to pull out of our savings account and pay off the home depot credit card too cause we put all the electrical supplies on there.

I am loving having power to the barn, more than I thought I would and I'm sure that come wintertime I will really be glad to have it. I also love having the faucet out there too. It is making things so much easier.

We had my husband's cousin and his family over all day yesterday after church and cousin B helped us work the bee hives....he also got stung I opted for a t-shirt this time cause the humidity was awful. I am happy to report that both hives look good and my weaker hive seems to be trucking along. They are working the outer frames some and I'm thinking that I might be able to get another hive body on in the next two weeks if they keep up this pace.

Today is the first day of VBS for the kids at our church and it started off a little rocky. Tyler is cutting his back molars and is complaining of his mouth hurting so I gave him some Tylenol this morning. He has run a fever off and on for the last couple days and is really grumpy. We took all the kids fishing yesterday evening and he caught the biggest fish, a 2 1/2-3lb largemouth bass, all by himself

I'm glad to have some time to myself without yelling at my children this week. Next week Maddie starts swim lessons and the week after that Tyler has soccer camp at church for the week. Gonna be a lot of running around.

My mom's church is doing a cookbook dedicated to the kids as a fund raiser for VBS so I sent her 5 or 6 recipes yesterday that are kid friendly and some that are also GF.

I also took some pics around the homestead here at Swingin' Tree Farm and I'm waiting on photobucket to upload them so I'll get them on in a bit.

 

[lorihadams]

Here's few pics for ya...

My gladiolas are blooming...I got a couple pictures of one of our bees in them too.

Here's the second garden with the squash, corn, watermelons and pumpkins...Maddie was modeling

And here are the flamingoes in the garden keeping watch over my corn patch

 

[calendula]

Beautiful glads! Ours are only about 6" tall right now. We were a bit late putting the bulbs out this year. It sure is a pain digging them up every fall, but they're so beautiful, it's worth it.

 

[lorihadams]

You dig yours up every fall? I plant mine and forget about it. I actually ended up with one from my old house that hitchhiked with some of the liriope I dug up to transplant to the new house when we moved.

I love them and the bees love them too. I bought a packet of 60 bulbs this spring and it was a mixed bag of colors so I ended up with the purpley-pink ones, pink ones, red ones, and the orangey ones. I may end up doing some others in some other spots where I planted stuff last year and it didn't come back. My DD loves to pull off all the dead blooms for me.

 

[calendula]

Yeah, it's too cold here (we're in zone 4). We have to dig them up in the fall, or they will freeze and wont come up the next year. Do you ever stake yours up? We had a lot of problem last year with them falling over.

 

[lorihadams]

Yeah, that's one thing I don't like about them is the falling over but normally I don't stake them. I have thought of doing some sort of string around a few stakes to keep them more upright. I love peonies too but that is one reason I don't have any--they always fall over, especially after a good rain. I planted my glads around the well cap to hide it a bit during the summer. I hadn't thought of what zone you were in, we are in zone 7 borderline zone 6 so we are okay with them staying in the ground. I planted 60 bulbs this year. I may plant more next spring cause I really do love them. The bees love them too.

 

[Wifezilla]

I can't grow glads here to save my life. Now hollyhocks...geez...I started with one tiny plant and now I have dozens all over the yard. LOVE that photo with the bee!!!

 

[lorihadams]

I don't have a lot of flowers, I planted some lavendar this year too closer to the bees and I have heard that if you plant lavendar underneath of fruit trees it will keep certain pests away from them. If that is true then I will get a crapload of lavendar to plant under all my fruit trees. I haven't done any hollyhocks but my great grandma had them and they were always so pretty. I wish I had gotten some of her peonies but I let my mom have all of the ones we dug up from the old homestead and I knew we were moving so I didn't take any.

 

[lorihadams]

Well, last night was the summer reading program kickoff for the library and they are doing a multicultural theme this year. The first event was a trio of "Island Dancers". They performed dances from Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand, Fiji, and Tonga. They let the kids all come on stage to do a couple of dances with them...I have video but can't figure out how to get it off my camera. :/ The final dance they did was a fire dance outside so the fire department sent a truck to be on standby just in case....that's why my son has a fire hat on in the picture. We had a really good time and each child got to pick a free book out of a box. I love our library

These are the Tahitian costumes (yellow and black) My son and daughter are just to the right of the dancer.

Afterwards

Fire dancer

 

[gettinaclue]

HOW NEAT! Looks like it was a good time.