Kids preparing for gathering Trash Can Turkey

The kids are helping get ready for a gathering here

and you can see all the plants started in the window, ready to be put out in the garden :) 

 Kota is making my awesome vegetable dip

all this for the dip? he asks LOL well ok not quite all goes into the dip

 doing what she does best ha ha

 trash can turkey!!!

 oh yeah, it was pretty good too

Drainage around house, cobblestone sidewalk

 Remember my sidewalk I built because I didn't like the mud it drug into the house, I wanted to take it all around this end of the house and meet up in front to the front porch?

 well I stopped because winter was on it's way, then we found out we needed drainage ditch around the house so never did anymore, figuring to hold off and finish it after the ditch was put in

it has worked great, that little sidewalk  and the hosta in my planting boxes are growing really nice

well you see that lovely hill behind our house, it really does allow a ton of water to run off, right down into where we park as well as around the house itself, and we have been getting water in the basement

you know what that means, drainage ditch around the house is top priority now, you can see I have prepared and removed all the plants that I had on this end of the house, they are now snuggled up in that new front flowerbed I just created

the poppy is from the lady Laner up the road, she was moving and said I could dig starts all I wanted, she didn't think they could be transplanted, well I dug some, and lookie there, they were happy enough to grow and bloom for me :)

just a pretty little egg basket I planted, such pretty bright colors with the pansies, lobelia, dusty miller and the clematis is growing into it now too

Raised bed under sweetgum tree & firepit

Today I am going to show you some photos taken during the raised bed project

first we had to remove the fire pit so the skid loader could get in there

 firepit rocks cleaned up and stacked elsewhere so we can get more dirt into that raised bed we made under the sweetgum tree

 you can see the bean tree is all down and the logs stacked

 lots of dirt from the farmer to fill in this area

 everything piled up during the process, that's the part I hate, the mess

 Dakota getting me some more dirt

 good job Dakota!

 he is becoming a master at that skid loader

 dad supervising

 about one more load 

 while they are bringing the dirt, I am raking it down

 there it is, all filled in, firepit put back in place and cleaned up finally, we even moved the woodpile!!

 with the railroad ties there, it's extra seating for around the firepit too

that old bed spring has my cukes growing up it

Adding onto the front walkway strip flower bed

I love flowers! I just didn't have enough garden space for the, when we were transplanting things here from the old house, alot just got dumped into strip beds around the house to get them in so I wouldn't kill them, now that I have lived here awhile and have had some time to get used to where stuff needs to go, I found that I needed more color in the front area of the house, so I am taking that little walkway strip bed and widening it out quite a bit

 so I get the tiller out and start tilling all around the dogwood tree, and made a nice big planting area, put down some weed block cloth and started transplanting my flowers from the south side of the house to the east side, partly because we know where the water runs off the back hill and we ended up with a wet basement, so we know we need to dig a trench around that end of the house to put in drainage, so getting my plants moved before they come to dig and tear up that end

I also started a "strip" bed down by the road, it runs from the azaelia bush over to the burning bush, I have planted corkscrew willow trees, oak trees, hosta, grasses, iris, you name it, lots put in down at the road strip bed as well

got a load of mulch down finally and just look at all the flowers in this bed now

I love when a new project is complete and I can sit back and enjoy looking at everything we have accomplished here in such a short time

still live fishies in the pond

 a dear friend of mine gave me a pile of railroad ties, so the upper strip bed and the new turtle pen under the male tree have railroad ties outlining them

sweet hubby made me some rustic wood planter boxes

filled with salvia, lobelia and hmm thought I had something white in there too

 kittens are now full grown and bring me presents

and the hen house kitty Backfire is getting spoiled and so big and pretty now