Mail!!

Hullo!! I got mail today! It is one of Beanie's cards...

But wait a minute... those are American stamps?

Huh?? American stamps on a Beanie card??

Ah-hah!!! It's from Ajdin!!

 I love getting mail!

Mumble... mumble... aww... Thanks Ajdin!!!

Now, as this is a Beanie Card, I am going to have to register it on Beanie's Found Art website... and... there we go!! I've left a message for Beanie letting him know I found it.

On the Hunt for Gnomes

Hullo... a few months ago, I found a trail with gnome homes! Mind you, there were supposedly 10 gnome homes and I only found 4 or 5 but... today, I am going to try again..

Today is a beary good day for this because... although it is raining... I have Daisy the Dog for a visit... and she has a good gnome gnose!

And young Rose is back too!! She is a beary accomplished sniffer out of faeries and gnomes are distantly related to faeries... so we should be good.

Did I mention that it is raining?? Well it is... luckily I have my rain slicker.

Oh yes... the first gnome door... this one is easy to find, right off the trail.

Others have these signs pointing to them so they are easy too...

But some of them are harder to find because they are off the beaten path...

That's where Rose comes in handy!! She found a gnome door way over there on that old stump!

She is a beary good gnome door finder...

This one even has a gnome at home! Do you see him in front of his door? He was making tea but I couldn't fit through the door so...

Mind you... the red huckleberries are out... there is one just to the right of my nose... They are still a bit sour yet. I tried some blue Oregon Grape berries and promptly spit them out... bah!!! Beary sour and tasted beary "green". Maybe Little Fox knows when they are ready? Or are they just baking berries?

The forest can be beary pretty in the rain though...

This snail was munching on some lichen... but in the middle of the trail so I moved him and his lichen patch to the side of the trail...

Nope... no bears sighted on this trail!! Heh-heh!

Garden Update - Part the Second

Righto... now we get to the good part!

The strawberries are doing beary well - nice and lush - so far we've had 3 strawberries off of them, but there are more growing. We think some mice might be nibbling them too because some strawberries have a bite taken out of them.

This is one of our pea rows... they are doing amazing!

And it's time to pick some of them because some are ripe.

I can help with this... Wow... there sure are a lot of them!

Oh boy... and someone is going to have to shuck these as well.

Our parsley is... beary happy!

So is the lettuce (left) and beets (in the front).

This is a row of baby radishes... they just got thinned...

And rows of spinach and mesculan (salad mix).

The garlic, now that we've harvested the scapes, is starting to wilt at the bottom. Which is good. Our go-to-farmer-guy-named-Richard says once 1/3 of the leaves at the bottom have wilted then they are good to pick.

These are our zucchini plants - we put seeds in the ground in late May... next year I would put them out in April.. we are on the balmy west coast after all!

The squash seeds are a little bit farther behind.

And these squash seeds only put out one plant... not sure what happened to the rest.

We also planted sunflowers... they are coming along nicely.

Here are the raspberries... I think it's time to put some string/wire up for a lateral support for them...

At the end of the raspberry row (either end) we planted Red Sprinter Beans... err... Scarlet Runner Beans. They are climbing up the string that Mama tied for them.

Finally... our potato experiment! In the spring we had two old potatoes in the cupboard which had sprouted already... so Mama put them in this old tub and kept adding dirt as they grew... let's see if they've done anything.

I let Mama dig into the ground and dig and dig to the bottom looking for potatoes... and what did she find??

Potatoes!! Our very own potatoes!

Wow....

Awwww look... some of them are just my size!

So that is the harvest for today, spinach and salad, peas and potatoes... not bad for a first harvest. Have you harvested anything from your garden yet?

Garden Update - Part the First

I think it's about time I did a little garden patrol and show you what's happening in our back 40.

This is one of the flower beds... we have little pansies here and planted wildflowers, bachelor buttons and some transplanted california poppies. The wildflowers ended up being just red poppies... go figure. Everything else is doing beary well.

This one is Hammie red!

We also have some lavenders that we transplanted and they are beary happy. Mind you, we are not going to let them get unruly and take over the world. You have to keep lavender under a tight rein and nicely pruned...

And do you remember in the spring... this was a slope around the big plum tree... We put cardboard on last fall to kill the grass...

And this is what it looks like now!! Much better...

And finally... some transplants looking for a home. These are lily of the valley from Auntie's house in Vancouver... and she got them from Gramma's old house where Mama grew up! So that is beary exciting... now just need to get them in the ground.

Happy Canada Day!!