Empty Nest

Empty Robins Nest.

Hackberry tree seeds now inhabit the nest.

Oh Christmas Tree!!!

Now some wool batting around the base to protect my vintage fabrics and lace.

A vintage slip (pettifore) that I found in the first wifes stash of yummy fabrics that I split up one side and draped over the wool batting.

Very pretty, and delicate!

Some crochet vintage panels draped over the vintage slip, I may rework this tomorrow but right now my raging head cold is saying "go take a nap"!

Yes the tree is in my studio, aka formerly known as the living room!

We will put the ornaments on the tree this Sunday, which will give the cats time to adjust to the tree.

High Winds versus the Pear Tree

And the pear tree lost, the Keifer doesn't seem to have sustained any damage though, the truck just a few scratches.

Cherry tree

The cherry tree was covered in honeybees this afternoon, hopefully this means many cherries later this spring :-)  Am eagerly anticipating my first batch of sour cherry jam.

Aphids

Aphids - they are everywhere and they are devouring everything!!! I guess it's time to pull out the big poisons - Sevin - and kill everything off! I truly hate to do this but we have them so bad that they are actually eating the leaves on our oak trees!!! I've never seen an aphid on an oak tree before but I guess anything IS possible.

My grape vine is all but dead and I'm trying to keep a 150 year old english rose root stock alive!

Garden Update

Well we are almost done with the garden fencing, one little bit left to be done tomorrow night - the kolrabi box at the base of our cherry tree. The green beans are popping up after the heavy rain we had last night. My lettuce looks like it'll be ready to pick in a week, can't wait!

Trouble in a Tree

Trouble, our attic squirrel - well it is her fifth year or so of living in our attic not our choice mind you - eating crabapples competing with the robins and cedar waxwings.

Christmas Tree

View from a different angle, the tree is a little pathetic looking at the moment ;-)

It's halfway decorated, I need to go to the attic and get more ornamets etc., this will have to wait until John gets home from work as there's a squirrel that lives up there and she thinks it's her territory! We name the squirrel trouble and NO she's not a pet!!!

Somewhere in this house is a large damask table cloth when I find it I'll put it under the quilt - Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern, it's probably 50 years or more old, all hand stitched and hand quilted. As you can see we did get my mother's china cabinet in the house, yeah, now John needs to fix the shelves so I can put my mother's china into the cabinet.

What's that Smell!

I spent the better part of yesterday trying to find what had died in the laundry room. It started when I emptied the dehumidfier into the floor drain and persisted through the evening. I poured water down the floor drain again and every time I did so the odor got worse.

I finally found the problem - dead tree frog! No kidding. A few weeks ago I found myself trying to track down the weird sounding cricket in the laundry room, partly thinking it sounded a LOT like a tree frog. Well said tree frog must have come in with the bushels of apples because there is no other reason for a tree frog to want to come into my house! It was either looking for a way out of the house or for water, anyway it is no more poor little fella.

Cherry Tree in Bloom