Monthly Archives: May 2012

Mud boot planter – step by step

My weed patch flower gardens look like this (click here to read more on that…)  :

(Isn’t it amazing that any flowers can still bloom in there, lol?!)

…when I received this beautiful Gerber Daisy from Mike’s sister & her husband for Mother’s Day, an alarm bell went off in my brain…

“Now I will EITHER have to weed my weed patch flower garden, OR COME UP WITH A ‘PLAN B’…”

Still fresh in my memory banks was the inspiration I received from Jill about my mud boot dilemma.

OBVIOUSLY, that’s the direction I went… 🙂

Here’s where I wanted the planter to go.  I thought it would be nice & easy to attach it to the gate.

So, I took my broken boot, marked it with chalk, & and started cutting.

Next, I poked drainage holes through the bottom of the boot.  I knew better than to use a hammer to pound a screwdriver through the boot (I had made that mistake once before…), so I THOUGHT I was being ever-so-wise as I dug through Mike’s toolbox… and found this…

WRONG AGAIN.  😦 I was informed I used a tool incorrectly AGAIN, and was graciously forgiven for (slightly) denting the tip of Mike’s punch tool.

Mike decided to offer help with my project now (wonder why??), and drilled some drainage holes for me. 🙂

He also said he didn’t think the gate was a good place to hang it.

With all the “action” it gets, he thought the rubbery boot would not be sturdy enough & the flower could fall out.

So, a more stationary position was sought.

Next, I had the boys collect some rocks to put in before the dirt.

Once I planted the flower, I realized something was needed to hide the emptiness of the tall part of the boot.

I’ve had this bag of moss in my craft corner for YEARS – thought it might work for this…  (So glad I never threw it away, lol!)

Next, came the tricky part.  Attaching the boot to our porch railing.

I decided to use braided twine.

About 3 baseball seasons ago, I braided a big crate of used twine that came off our hay bales as I sat & watched the boys play.

(No, I’m not kidding.  I love to create or do things with my hands while I’m sitting!)

My original intention was to use the braids as Christmas roping to decorate our picket fence.  That didn’t pan out, so I have a stash of pretty, braided twine in my craft corner, too. 🙂

I must tell you, though, I am NOT an accomplished “tie-er”.  You’ll see in this pic from the backside, that I basically just kept wrapping & knotting until the boot seemed sturdy.

Here’s a pic for Susy over at Chiotsrun – I finally got to use my Ethel gloves for this project! 🙂

I knew right away what I wanted the tag to say.  I am always praying this for myself, so it is fun to apply it creatively in something I can visually see.

A remade remnant, just like me! 🙂

peas in

I know – there’s really nothing to see in this pic. But, since this post is as close to a “record” as we’ll get, I’m gonna post it. Every year I begin charting garden planting data on a calendar and then fizzle out halfway through harvest time. Figured if this blog is my “virtual scrapbook“, it might as well be our “virtual garden journal” as well, lol! 🙂

[Planted 2-2/3 rows of Little Marvel (bush) peas.]

celery, broccoli, & cabbage in today

Originally, we started our own plants from seed, in newspaper pots. We had good success at first, but steadily declined from that first year.
We began with growing them in our basement on top of our chest freezer (just like my Grandpa used to do…) under lights. 🙂 That worked well for the first couple years – until we started using our freezer more, lol. So, we switched to our heated garage under fluorescent lights. It worked well for a couple years – until our heater died… Then this year we used our milkhouse since it’s also heated. Once we started milking, though, we moved the plants to Mike’s parents’ heated garage. And just as they started looking really good, mice found them and ate off most of the tops! Grrrrr… Guess we just aren’t ready to start the amount of plants we need from seed!

How thankful we are for our friends at Skipper’s Greenhouse in Carrollton!! We picked our plants up this week & Lord willing, will be getting everything planted soon.

[Garden Journal: Today we planted 16 celery, 12 Red Acre cabbage, 16 Danish Ballhead cabbage, & 20 Packman broccoli.]

Sometimes it’s hard for us to admit we can’t do it all. But when the dust clears from failed efforts, the path becomes more clear. Thank you, Lord, for preparing us to be receptive to help, and for surrounding us with support & cooperative efforts. We pray for the “fruit” of these plants and our efforts. May the harvest be plentiful. Amen 🙂

A night out-dinner & a concert

A Mother’s Day gift from my 3 boys…
1st, a fun dinner in Akron. A friend recommended we eat at Luigi’s.(Thanks, Kellen!)

Next stop, Hudson – Christ Community Chapel – for a Fernando Ortega concert! I love his simple, melodic voice & that he writes/plays/arranges songs that are a witness to his walk with Jesus. 🙂 We were blessed with a front row pew – got to watch his fingers playing on the grand piano… I’m so grateful for being able to share this evening with my family. Thank You, Lord. 🙂

Workin’ up the raised beds

We put these raised beds in many years ago. I had big dreams of them overflowing with colorful flowers…until I finally admitted that I just don’t enjoy weeding around flowers, lol! 😦 I don’t mind it around veggies, just not around ornamentals…

Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE ENJOYING BEAUTIFUL GARDENS – just other people’s! 🙂

So, one bed has turned into Paul’s strawberry patch, and the other two are for Michael’s pepper gardens – hot & mild. 🙂

Taters in…

Bought a 50# bag of Kennebec seed potatoes, and during the boys’ baseball practice I cut them into one or two-eyed pieces for planting. We got home from practice & planted them! Tomorrow and for the next week we’ll continue to mound the rows & add some old hay for mulch. 🙂

Hooray – kittens at last!

With only 2 female barn cats left to be “fixed”, there have been less kittens on the farm this year (much to the boys’ dismay)…

Our boys LOVE all the cats. And yes, each cat has (at least) one name + a story, lol! 🙂

Just this morning at milking, the boys said they thought it looked like Cloudy might have been nursing babies. So, once their schoolwork was done this afternoon, they went on a “kitten hunt”. 🙂

It didn’t take long & they found them! They were in a hay hole all the way at the top of the stack. One boy and one girl. Names are currently being brainstormed…