New blooms

These are the flowers close up.

This is the second Christmas cactus in bloom. If you look back on my blogs the first one that bloomed was around Nov 24th. I still have one more plant but it's not doing anything at the moment. Will see if it even blooms this year or maybe we will have to wait till early next year. This plant here is a different species. These flowers are huge and flourescent pink whereas the other one was red and spider type blooms. I don't put them in closets like the directions say you are suppose to do. They decide on their own when they are ready to be pretty.

Still no snow on the ground yet. Hooray!!! I am hoping to drive to Florence OR for Christmas to be with my family. It's an 8 hr drive and I will be by myself. So wish me luck with the weather.

"Walk in the Woods" by Stephen Lyman

I fell in love with this piece of art about 13 years ago. I saw it in an art gallery in Sandpoint Idaho.

My brother sent me some money for my birthday (Sun Dec 6th) and I went to the Northtown Mall. A friend of mine said I had to go to this certain art store called "Affordable Art" because they had lots of moose pictures. He knows I am crazy about moose. I walked around the store and saw lots of beautiful moose pictures but just didn't like any of them enough to spend a fortune on. I finally asked the sales lady if she had any moose pictures by Stephen Lyman. She took me around a corner and said she only had this one. (below) I almost cried. It was the one I had wanted forever. I bought it and it's now hanging in the living room. I never thought I would ever have that particular painting. I LOVE IT! Thank you brother Dave!!

This picture of it doesn't really do it justice. It came framed this way too which is awsome!

Snow and flowers

Above is my Jasmine plant that is growing wild up the wall. I am trying to train it to go across the ceiling but there is a skylight in the kitchen so it's trying to decide which direction to grow towards. Windows on one side or skylight on the other.

We have about three Christmas Cactus (holiday cactus as they call them these days as not to offend anyone) and this is the first to bloom. It's two days before Thanksgiving and it's in glorious bloom. We have two others and one is just budding and the other isn't doing anything yet. So hopefully we will get blooms all through the holiday season.

Thank goodness we have pretty flowers and plants inside because they would never survive outside in the snow. This is our second snowfall this year and it's not melting this time. We had around 3 inches fall last Sunday.

Our cats went to the vet yesterday to get their annual shots. They are brother and sister and we have had them since they were 8 weeks old. I was in shock when I found out that Smokey weighs 13lbs 12oz and Ashley weighs 10lbs 2oz. Buuuuutt it is winter and they are outside cats so they have to build themselves up to keep warm and survive the winter weather. That's the excuse they both gave me anyway. They are only 2 years old so we will see what they have for an excuse in the spring time when they start to shed their winter coats. Hmmmmm, maybe time to let them know the meaning of DIET. LOL

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Bad language

Yep, what you see on the ground there is a four letter BAD word. I can't believe it's here so soon this year. October 29th!!!!!

This is like seeing Christmas decorations in the stores before Halloween. I wish everything would hold off until at least after Thanksgiving.

The weather forecasters have said that this will be a mild winter. I certainly hope so after the last two. Let's all keep our fingers and toes crossed that we just have a little of the white stuff this year! Cross your fingers and toes for Rosemary's neck of the woods too. She gets it a lot worse in N. Idaho than I do here in Spokane. (100 miles apart).

Sick of looking at the squash on my blog.

I am so tired of looking at those squash on my last blog I had to update.


Here are two views of the new porch add on. Looks messy right now but once it's cleaned up I will get better pics.
The construction crew were friends that drove over from Seattle just to do this job. Oh, and also play disc golf (very important). Took three days with lots of disc golf included to finish the porch. They will be back in the spring to erect a carport for our cars. Poor guys worked in below freezing weather with lots of wind. Oh, and all my plants are dead from that freeze. I am glad in a way because I don't want to see another squash till next year. LOL

Our weather now is in the 40's at night and up to the low 60's during the day. Rainy. Got that roof on just in time.

Pictures

Looks funny not to have at least one picture on each of my blogs. I took this over the weekend to show just how many veggies we get. This is just a few of each by the way.

Seems the zuchinni has slowed down just about when the crookneck decided to take off. The basket is full of tomatoes and cucumbers, and we have started to get a few edible ears of corn which are just DELICIOUS! White corn at that! In the middle you will see a Basil plant. I have to admit I bought that at the store because I was making zuchinni soup and it called for fresh basil. Hey I am sounding like I can actually cook. Ha ha! I dabble here and there on fun things but don't expect me to cook day after day. NOT me. I would rather clean dishes any day!

I found a project in my latest Birds and Blooms magazine that I am going to make next spring along with planting lots of veggies again. It is a bird bath and it is two terra cotta pots butted together with a saucer on top that you decorate with mozaic pieces. Looks fun and pretty. We love to attract birds here in the garden. After our sunflowers die we take the heads and hang them in trees and over posts so the birds can feast during the harsh winter months.

Vegetables

A friend of mine said I didn't need to add pictures for every blog. So thank you Rosemary.

This summer growing season has been fantastic. We have grown more this year than last and hope to venture into growing new things next year. So far we have had an over abundance of Zuchinni and Crookneck squash. I have made 8 loaves of zuchinni bread and lots of zuchinni soup and froze so far. Have given away so so many of both zuchinni and crooknecks and still have lots left. They are also still growing.

The tomatoes have done really well too. I have blanched, peeled and frozen quite a few, eaten lots and they taste so much better than store bought. Of course everything tastes better when it's homegrown.

We planted white corn for the first time and I tasted my first ear today. OMG! it was absolutely delicious! That is a definite do again next year. We also grew cucumbers this year and they are delicious too. Last year we grew the pickling kind and they weren't as good. We had a friend come over and take most of them for pickling. A couple of days ago I had a cucumber, zuchinni sandwich. Wow! it was yummy.

I planted some wildflower seeds and had all kinds of pretty flowers come up. Somehow I also got a tomato plant and of all things a cantelope plant. The cantelope has three small melons on it right now. I don't know if they will get big enough to eat of not but what a nice surprise.

After looking at Rosemary's potatoes she grew I want to try to grow some next year. They looked really tasty.

Even though the season is coming to an end I have to admit I had so much fun playing in the garden this year and reaping the benefits.

Goodbye summer. Hello Fall.