Monday, 16 July 2018

Mondays, what can you say about Mondays... they are like a catch-up day for the weekend and a what am I going to do with this week kind of day.

Yardwork.  I finally got to my ivy patch today. What a challenge.  Those ivy vines are a mile long!  (pretty close to it, I think!)  I start to pull them and the ivy across the patch starts to move!  So I made some new piles to clean up later in the week.

I don't remember if I shared this, but the egg shells I found were from new baby birds... so, there are at least two little mouths to feed in the robin's nest.  :-)  The parents work all day to get them fed.  It is so amazing how they are still and quiet when they are gone, but as soon as they return with some food, all you hear is little birds screaming for it.  :-)

I moved an old birdbath top (the bowl part) over by the nest to see if it gets used.  When I make my cement to try it out, I hope to repair the bird bowl.  It holds a little water, but it would be great if it held it full of water.  I am thinking of putting some small stones in the bottom, too... to make sure they can all stand in it and take a bath if they want... I need to check out what other bird bath bowls look like online...

My blackberry bushes are getting filled with darkening berries... :-)  Most are still too green, but I'm hoping to go check every morning... if I can drag myself out of bed.  I am always so tired in the morning.  I didn't get outside until about 9:30 this morning... and it was hot already.  Yuk!  I'm trying to decide what to do with the berries if they turn out good.

I forgot there is a yellow plum tree, too.  I found a broken branch today and trimmed it off.  It had so many plums on it I was sad, and tried to see if I could save them somehow.  Then I saw a bunch of spotty things on most of them so I figured they had been dying for awhile.  I barely got any plums last summer. This summer there are tons... if they all get ripe and edible.  I think thinning out the patch area helped them this year.  I hope to thin out the bad branches after they get ripe.  Next year it may really be a good tree for food.

I keep seeing a reddish tree with small fruit that looks like a plum, but they are so small I don't know for sure.  I didn't eat them last summer.  I'm not sure the tree is doing well this summer either.  Maybe, after all the fixing I do this summer, it will grow better next summer.

I am deciding that water is the key in July... So, that means I will try more watering from the beginning of July or when I see the flowers go away.  That's the goal... experiment... learning exercise... for next year.

My son has let me harvest a bit of their garden this week.  It looks like zucchini and yellow squash are coming in great.  The chard is huge.. I may freeze some more tomorrow.  And the lettuce is a new experience for me.  I am trying it out.  They have the normal tomato plants and I think I saw a butternut squash plant.  They have some tall ones I have no idea what they are.  And there are some corn stalks. I think corn has a hard time growing in Oregon... here, anyway... the eastern side of Oregon is a lot hotter.  I hear they grow sugar beets there.

It was a long day, I had to rest in spots.  I keep trying to find my "zone" and haven't made it there yet.  Back to finishing my monthly letters tomorrow, working on my list, and trying to get my crafting done.

I did work on a way to store my projects this weekend. And made my first online order at Hobby Lobby.  I'm anxious to see how it goes.  I plan to make my caramels after it gets here as I ordered a mold to try out with them.

I decided to make my own molds for my cement and plaster projects.  That is work-in-progress.  I am using old wood I have - some scavenged along the roads - for cement and plaster, and looking through my crafting molds for other plaster options.  Once I make it, I want to try several different projects I have been thinking about trying.  Plaster is so amazing in some of the works I have seen online... shaped like flowers and other things on walls, used with fabric to make shapes... and other things.  I have to get everything figured out and have the supplies handy to try.

My resin projects are nearly ready to do.  This is a new craft for me, so I want to have more to do than I need... to make sure I don't waste the resin.  It is very expensive for me.

So, my ongoing saga continues.  :-)   We shall overcome!  As long as I keep living, anyway.

That's about enough for now... I hope tomorrow is a good day.  My smoke detector started beeping in the middle of the night last night and it took awhile to figure out why.  The battery turned out to be the problem.  I wasn't going to turn it off and then have a real fire show up!  I am glad it was only the battery.

Until next time,
In Christ,

Deborah Martin
work2gather.us

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Thank you, Lord, for the good ending to the lost woman on her way home...
Help us to see the purpose in our lives.
Make us worthy of your blessings.
Help us to find the good in life.
Amen.