it's not quite over, and what do you think

Good morning.
The weather has been cool, but sunny. It rained all night Sunday night, but quit by morning. I've accomplished a lot during the last 2 days. I now have about 85% of the yard cut back. All that's left is some late blooming perennials and all the grasses.
Here's whats still blooming.....
A pretty l\plant called Toad Lilly. Above a closer view of the tiny flowers.

Above, Monkshood. Because each individual flower resembels the hoon on a monks robe. Below. Japanese anemones.
So even though most of the yard is tired looking and mostly done for the season, there's still a few spots of color. :-)
And for our anniversary, we went out to lunch yesterday. We decided on Finlay's. I had their famous ribs, and Craig had their American Cheeseburger. Both were very good.
And we're in the process of deciding on new dryer chairs for the Salon.
We have a couple of styling chairs that have cracks in the vinyl seats. The seats are the same ones we have on the dryer chairs. Soooo, I want to swap the dryer chair seats for the cracked styling chairs. Styling chairs are about twice the cost of dryer chairs, so it makes sense to get new dryer chairs instead. Her's are 3 choices......
A...

B....
And C....
I like C with the chrome handles, Craig likes A with the ribbed back. What do you think?

a pond post

Good morning.
Since I've gotten numerous comments about the pond, I thought I'd do a pond post. :-)

My pond is approximately 15 by 30. I hand dug it over the course of 2 seasons. It ranges in depth from 14 to 18 inches deep. No fish. It would need to be over 3 ft deep for fish to over winter, and Craig wouldn't let me dig it that deep. Something about needing a fence then or something. Besides, it was enough work to do this much. :-)
There is a pump at this end that plugs into an outlet hidden by the bush.
It pumps water through a 2 inch hose to the other end for the waterfall.
This also helps with water circulation. Sucking it from one end, and putting it back in at the other end. Also helps with aeration.
In the pond are dwarf cattails, 3 colors of water lilies, and purple pickerel rush.

I occasionally have to add a pond clarifier and algacide to keep it clear.

Dirt dug for the pond was used to raise the end high enough for a waterfall.
I used concrete blocks for the back, and broken concrete for the top and front. Pea gravel was used to fill in the cracks on top. There are steps on this side, and a rising gravel path on the other.

Ground cover hides most of the concrete blocks on the back. The benches were made also. For the top, we used a piece of plywood. Cut a section of plastic lawn edging and attached it to the plywood in a curved fashion. Did that for the front and back. Used straight sections for the ends. Mixed up concrete and filled the 'form' half way. added some rebar for strength, and filled it full. For the 'legs' we used 2 kitchen trash containers and filled them with concrete. when set, cut away the plastic and flip over. Cheap durable benches.

A view back up towards the house.

The plastic liner is held in place by a row of bricks. They are covered by flagstone. I dug a small trench around the flagstones and poured concrete, giving the pond a more finished edge, and locking the flagstones in place.

Another view of the pond from the other end of the house. Our yard slopes down away from the house. The back of the yard was the only fairly level place to put the pond.
So that's all about the pond.
Yesterday, I spent most of the day in the yard. I re-leveled 2 bird baths, weeded, and dead-headed. It was hot! 92 for a high, so I took it slow and easy. :-)
Dinner, we had the last 2 t-bones from the 4 pack I bought for the 4th, with baked potatoes and grilled zucchini.

more garden pics

Good morning.
It's been a steady week so far in the Salon.
The weather has been great!
Here's some more pics of the gardens....

The gardens are really peaking right now. That's not to mean they're almost done. It just means I've got the most stuff blooming at this time. I still have a lot of flowers to bloom. My day lillies are just beginning and I've got 50 or so of them.
And it looks to be another hot dry weekend. :-)
Have a great weekend!

another beautiful weekend

Good morning.
It was another beautiful weekend, camping, and at home. :-)
Yesterday, I managed to wax another 2/3 of one side of the mo-ho.
I've also been busy constantly sweeping up leaves and it's not even fall!
We have a very large old crabapple on the west side of the house. It has some condition where during the summer, it ends up dropping most of it's leaves. By late summer, it looks real bad. I don't see it much, because it's on the other side of the house where we don't go much.
Anyway, the gardens look real good, despite the annual arrival of the Japanese beetles. They eat mostly my roses, so I won't see any more of their flowers for the rest of the season. :-(
But here's a couple of pics of what is blooming....

And now, it's time for another work week. Looks to be a fairly busy one. I need a haircut real bad, hope to find some time to have someone cut it. :-)

And I'm going to try short. My hair has been thinning a lot on top, and even though cutting it shorter will make it look thinner, It will still look better than this long stringy crap I've got now. It's hell getting old..... :-)

zombie land

Good afternoon,

Sorry, no morning post today. I didn't get home from the Salon until after 10pm yesterday, and got up too late to post and get to the Salon by 7:30 this morning. :-\
The corrective color I did lasted over 4 hours! There was just an unbelievable amount of color build-up that took the largest chunk of time and I still didn't get it all off. So, no blond with purple streaks for her! But I was exhausted by the time I got home. A 14 hour day is just tooo long at my age. :-)
I even felt like a zombie this morning. So bad, I mixed the wrong color for my first client. Good thing I caught it as I was applying it. It didn't look right coming out of the bottle. Pulled the tube out of the trash to find a tube had fallen over a notch. I usually double check the number on the tube when I open it, but like I said, I was a bit of a zombie this morning. I was applying a warm brown instead of a dark blond. That would not have been good. But I quickly got that off and reapplied the right one. Glad this was a short day today.

And with all the rain the last couple of days, Our rain gauge says 4+ inches, I won't have to water for a while. ;-)
And here's some more pics of the yard.....

Have a great weekend!

Sunday flowers

Good morning.
Another flower post.
Stuff is blooming like crazy right now with the nice warm temps. :-)

Above, a tree peony and below, a pink Lupine in front of some single pink peonies.

Above, a white double peony and a yellow swamp iris.

And above, a bearded Iris. And more to come. :-)

Happy Friday

Good morning.
Here's some current pics of the yard....We have nearly an acre....

Not much to say, Work has been busy, the weather is cooling back down into the 70's, and soon it'll be another weekend! :-)

It's yard sale time!

Good morning.

I've just returned from cleaning the Salon. I didn't have time to clean it completely, because I discovered an ant issue.

While vacuuming, I saw a few tiny ants. vacuumed them up and though nothing about it, until I kept seeing more. Upon closer inspection I discovered there was a trail of them. It ran from an out side wall in the bathroom all the way through the Salon to the front door. Just outside the front door in a crack in the sidewalk was a massive ant nest with thousands of ants scurrying about. So I got out the trusty Home Pest Control and had at them. They were no match for a superior force. :-)

So I'll finish cleaning the Salon tomorrow.

Saturday, I was invited to a retirement open house. One of my long time customers was retiring from teaching. I do a number of her friends also. I was asked by one of them if I could supply flowers for the tables as I had supplied lilacs for another event a few years ago. I said I'd be happy to, but the lilacs have been done for a couple of weeks now. I'll pick whatever I have and bring them in.

This is what I was able to scrounge up....

I picked them Saturday morning before work, and took them in with me. She picked them up and took them to the community center where the open house was to be. After work, I arrived there to numerous comments on how wonderful the arrangements looked. I Got home in time to relax on the deck with Craig before dinner, which was home made pizzas.

And now, I'm off to get my yard sale set up for this morning. I open at 9am.

lucky again

Good morning. And a happy Memorial Day!
We were lucky again. Yesterday evening, powerful storms ripped through Michigan. One storm with 80mph winds ripped through Battle Creek, just 45 miles south of us, taking out trees, a number of homes and taking out power lines. But we were lucky, no damage here. :-)
Yesterday morning, I trimmed some bushes because Craig wanted to burn up a pile of branches later. So i had a very large snowball bush that needed trimming back. The branches get very heavy and hang, so I cut them up.
Here's a pic of it. It's full of white pom-pom like flowers.
After I trimmed that and a few others, I scraped the main deck in prep for staining.

Then it was time for a shower and get Craig up. He decided he didn't want breakfast, so while he showered, I ran out for the Sunday paper. After our coffee and paper, I called for a burning permit. It was a pretty decent day weather wise. Got up to 80, but mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. The rain held off until the evening where we got just over an inch in barely an hour. It came down in buckets!

Here's a pic Craig took of me with the the Tree Peonies and the False Rhubarb. He wanted to show how large the flowers are and how tall the rhubarb was. Tree Peonies have much larger flowers that the herbaceous ones.

Thanks to the very wet spring, there are like 687,000 mosquitoes this year (really! I counted!). The only way to go out in the yard is with deep woods off! I have a can just outside the patio door. It's the first thing I do when I go out. :-)

While Craig burned, I took all the yard sale stuff out into the garage. Today or tomorrow, I'll get it all ready for next weekends sale.

Dinner was pork cutlets, baked potato, and coleslaw.

This morning, I've just sealed the driveway. It took about 2 hours. I'll get a pic when it's dry. It was a nice 62 out. It's expected to hit 90 today and tomorrow, before dropping back into the normal 70's.

Now it's shower time, get Craig up and go shopping. I need another paint roller to finish the deck, and something for the grill today. :-)

Sunday post.

Good morning.
We're having an unusual Memorial Day weekend. Only a high of 54 on Friday, with a forecast high of 90 on Monday. From cold and wet, to hot and steamy. :-\
Friday, we finally had a day without rain. After we got home from work, we were able to mow the yard. Friday night was home made tacos. Yummy.
Saturday was cold and drizzly. I cleaned the Salon, and we did some running around. Office Max for Salon retail slips and post-it notes, and Lowe's for light bulbs. We have 2 ft u-shaped florescent lights in the main area, and 8 ft florescent lights in the supply/store room. 12 light bulbs, $96.00. Expensive suckers.
Back home, it stopped raining, so while Craig did his usual Sunday bookwork and laundry,( I know, it's only Saturday, but that means Sunday is free!) I took the weed whacker and cleaned along the creek that runs along our lot line.
I also did some maintenance weeding. I'm pretty much all done with the yard. :-)
With iffy grilling weather, Craig made sloppy Joe's for dinner with sweet potato fries. Both were good. Watched a movie called Red Planet. Also very good.
Today Craig wants to go out for breakfast. Not something we do often, so a little holiday weekend treat. :-)
And here's more things blooming in the yard right now...
Above and below, more Tree Peonies....

And between them, an ornamental Rhubarb. The leaves are nearly 3 ft across!

And scattered showers are forecast for today, so it looks like tomorrow will be my best chance to seal the driveway. We'll see.

back to work, I need the rest.

Good morning.
Another beautiful day yesterday, and did I maximise it! I did more weeding, trimming, and mulching.
Here's the section of the deck I stained from yesterdays pic....
Amazing what a little scraping and fresh stain will do. I did about half of our multi sectioned deck yesterday, and I'll finish it up this coming holiday weekend.
And here's that Azalea I showed you but now from a little farther out, next to another deck section I stained.

And here's a pretty tree Peony that a stylist had in her front yard and was going to tear it out. I told her I'd take it. It was enormous! I tried my best to get a good large root ball, and planted it in my yard. I nearly lost it as it slowly died off section by section. But a small piece survived, and now about 5 years later, it's looking real good again. I can't imagine anyone not liking Tree Peonies.. They're a majestic, impressive shrub that looks good even when not in bloom.

And here's a closer look of the flowers...

And here's a blooming Cranesbil, a nearly blooming Chive, and a soon to be blooming Penstrom.

And this morning, I've already edged the driveway and the front sidewalk. It's amazing how fast grass can creep over the edge. It was nearly 6 inches over the asphalt. But now it's a nice clean line. :-)

And now it's time to go to work. Good, I need the rest. :-)

progress continues

Good morning.
It's been a beautiful weekend, and we've managed to dodge the storms that have blown through. :-)
And here's a beautiful azalea that came into full bloom this warm weekend...

And I had a comment about showing all the work I've done on the driveway.

The above pic is what it looks like now...
And below are a couple of close-up pics of the bad areas, and the crack filler I used to fill them...

Actually, once I fill the cracks and then seal the driveway, it looks pretty good!

I'll take a pic next week after I get it sealed, so you can see the difference.

Yesterday, we flower shopped and did the banking and P.O. thing. Came home and spent a good part of the day planting. For dinner, I grilled us up some country style ribs and Craig made a tasty pasta salad.

This morning I've prepared part of the deck for restraining.

I'll get an after pic so you'll see how nice it'll look when I'm done.

Now it's shower time and wake up lazybones....:-)