A New Blog

Hi. Thanks for coming by. I have started another new blog now.

When I first started blogging I wanted to keep everything separate rather than have it all mixed together. Rather like having a file drawer for every topic. So I had to have 4 different blogs.
Growing Greater - yard stuff and some about my animals
Born2cree8 - about my fibre arts
Decisions Decisions (picturethis06) - my photography
Wandering Words - my poetry

Well, now there is Beta Blogger! In Beta Blogger I can use labels to keep things separated, so now it's like having one file drawer with several labeled file folders in it. This makes the whole blogging experience much easier for me as I now only have to post to one blog. It also makes it much easier for people who come to read my stuff as they now only have to visit one blog instead of several. How great is that!!

I will keep these old blogs as there is so much "stuff" on them, but I won't be posting to them any more after this one. If you want to come read this older stuff again, there are links on my new blog (All In One) to these older blogs.

So come visit me at All In One and see what new stuff I've been up to.

Tomato Garden

An old Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament.

Dear Vincent, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me.

Love, Dad

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A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad, Not for nothing, but don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the BODIES.

Love, Vinnie

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At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad, Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances.

Love, Vinnie

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Light Mail

Light Mail is sent out daily by email from the minister at my church, The Okanagan Centre for Positive Living (part of Religious Science International). Anyone can subscribe to it. There are some wonderful inspirational messages that Rev. Dale Jukes sends out to us.

I thought you would all enjoy this one. I sure did/do/am:



Daily Inspiration: Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses. ~Alphonse Karr

Today’s Affirmation: I see the beauty in all I look upon.

Today's Spiritual Practice: People who are positive are not blind to the thorns of life. They simply choose to focus on the things and thoughts that will incur growth. If you cut off every perceived flaw in a plant you would never get any harvest. Today choose to notice what will empower life.

You can visit us at http://www.lightmail.org

Hello again

Hi. I see it's been almost 3 months since I last posted to this blog. I must admit that my first attempt at gardening was a dismal failure. Almost everything I planted died, and did eventually my interest in doing anything in my yard. Oh well, the interest may return with the cooler weather of fall. I don't do well in the high temperatures of summer.

I have just updated my blog http://born2cree8.blogspot.com so you can go there and see what's happening with the fibre arts and other creations in my life. You can also go check out my new blog http://picturethis06.blogspot.com if you'd like to see some of my photographs.

This weekend I am up to my ears in Salmon Arm Fair as you will read about at born2cree8. After that I will try to get some new things posted here. I also have some more pictures to post to picturethis06. It originally was born to help me decide which pictures to enter in the fair, and now I am thinking it may live on as I post other pictures to it. But for now, it's off to bed as I have an early morning and a long day tomorrow. Just wanted to "touch base" incase any of my friends still take the time to check back and see if anything else has been done here. I hope so. Hugs to all!!

June 12 before I headed out to Lumby Days I picked these out of my Strawberry Patch. These are the first of my own berries... mmmmm. Unfortunately the birds are beating me to the biggest and the best berries, and since I only planted these plants this spring there is not much of a crop on them this year and what's there is fairly small. Next year should be much better.

Yet another Iris from Helen. She also gave me some other colors but the pics of them didn't turn out, too blurry. For some reason I couldn't get the camera to auto focus on them right so you will have to wait until next year when they bloom again to see the colors. One is purple/yellow the other is dark red/yellow.

Another plant from Helen is this Iris... a color I didn't have yet.

Here are 2 Columbines Helen gave me. Both are pretty much the
same color except one is paler than the other one.

This pretty purple Iris has striped leaves as you can see. Thanks Sam.

This is the wild rose bushes taking over the orchard. They are pretty, but very invasive.

Close up of wild roses.

Wild rose bush.

Pretty Purple Pansy Plants... say that 5 times fast, lol.

Someone at church said these are called Sweet Smelling Stock. I looked that up on Google and found nothing at all about them so am not sure of the name, but will call them that unless I hear different.

Lily of the Valley. These have been growing in my overgrown, unwatered, neglected flower bed for years now. It's amazing they survived. They must be happy now that they are getting better care.

Sunflowers growing amongst other flowers given to me by Sam.

This is the purple Columbine that Lynda gave to me.

Here are some of my flowers (taken June 2). Of course, this first one is an Iris.

Still standing in that same place, with my camera zoomed in all the way, here is my home. That cute grey barn belongs to the neighbor... sure wish it was mine :o)

Zoomed in a bit more and now you can actually see my house... green and white with the big metal roof. What? You need a closer look? Well, okay...

I zoomed in a bit and took this one...

June 2 (I think it was) on my way home from the store I decided to take some pictures. I was actually trying to get some pics of a pair of Ospray that are nesting on top of a pole, but he flew away and she ducked back into the nest before I could get into a good position to take the pics. So I took some other ones instead. This one is looking at my home from far away... it's somewhere on that hillside in the distance.

Two shots of where the gate will be going in. I doubt I'll have to go in very often, but want access just in case. You can see with these pictures how the bank creates a fencing challenge. When I'm finished I will show you how I dealt with it. At this point I have a couple ideas but don't yet know how well they'll work in the end.

Here's a close up of one part of the chicken run challenge. You can't really tell here, but because of the lay of the land there is as much as 20 inches (50.80 cm) between the ground and the wire. This is due to one post on the bank and the next one not. Much like the other end that you will see in the next pics.

The bottom part shows the dog run, the top shows the new chicken run. Admittedly it isn't great looking, using "scrounged" fence posts and used wire doesn't make for the best end result, but it sure is better than nothing and the main thing is that it keeps my chickens safely inside while giving them a nice area in which to roam, eating green grass and bugs, etc.

The top of the chook run is the top of my property, as is the right hand fence the end of my property to the north-east.

June 7th

Another load to the dump! This one was all branches with a bit of wood scraps and some wild rose branches (major thorns). At the dump I "scavenged" 2 wooden boxes, and I met a man that was about to throw out some fence posts. I asked if I could have them and he said yes, so I suggested he meet me outside the fence to move them from his truck to my trailer. This way he didn't have to pay for dumping them (I think there's 6 there) and I wouldn't go thru the scale weighing more than I did when I went in, haha. It was bad enough I "messed with the scale" by taking those boxes, but I couldn't just see them crushed. There was another one there too, but I couldn't get to it without moving a bunch of stuff, so it stayed there.

Later in the day, after taking care of several other things, I picked up a freeby (through Freecycle) barbeque. It was a propane barbeque but no longer is safe to use that way, so the guy was using charcoal briquettes and so will I. Not the top of the line barbeque I want, but hey... it's better than the nothing I had.

I also picked up Ron and brought him home for a few hours so we could get some work done before I had to head off to a Board Meeting. We got the rest of the wire mesh up on the chicken run!! There is still work to be done there... must put some wood at the bottom of the fence to stop the chooks from digging out, some of the wire is right on the ground, but some is up anywhere from 1" to over a foot, depending on the "lay of the land". There are a couple spots where I'm not sure what I've going to do to fill in the gaps, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. I also need to put in another post in so I can have a gate/doorway into that area, just in case.