Tacky Ads

As you may have noticed, I recently added some AdSense here. This is a magical Google ad thing that is supposed to recognize the things you blog about and put ads there that are about the things you blog about. If people click on the ads, you're supposed to make money.

Here's the nerdiest thing about me. I didn't do it because I wanted money.

I wanted to see what ads Google came up with based on my blog. Seriously, someone needs to get me some therapy. Quick.

Belinda

Garden, again

Well, I was recently in Nebraska for a few days and when I came back, my garden was bountiful and beautiful. Now, just to weed it. I needed a hoe to get in there and ordered some Rogue hoes from eBay. They are handcrafted in Kansas and I got four of them that hopefully will last us forever. Check em out here.

I also found an interesting (and CHEAP) way to support the tomatoes and maybe other things.
It's a Florida Weave system and uses sticks and twine to weave around the plants to support them. Sounds good to me!

Finally, some grass is growing!

Ummm...not so much here, although it's trying.

Random bleeding hearts that just popped up out of nowhere. It's so pretty even Paul left it alone.

Zucchini has been transplanted successfully!

Cantaloupe here. Only planted about 8 plants so we'll see how that goes.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit...hehe. Seriously, these are some green beans and some grass. Damn. Can't grow it where I want but it's sure popping up everywhere I don't want it.

Here's corn if you can see it beyond the field of grass! Yes, I desperately need to weed in here.

Tomatoes :)

Radishes, bounty beautiful. They taste marvelous.

Mixture of buttercrunch, spinach and leaf lettuce blend.

We built a little fence around the strawberries for multiple reasons. The first to keep the dogs out of here, second to make it easy to put mesh over it once we decide to let berries come (keep birds out), and finally, to easily put straw over it for the winter.

What's left after kicking out the radishes. There's a few tomatoes that I'm trying in the bed to see what does better and cabbage and broccoli.

All the lettuce and Brussels sprouts. Notice the lawn chair. This is where Paul sits and watches while I work. He loves to sit and watch me work, haha.

Belinda

Early visitor

Mom, my bro and his fiancee were down this past weekend visiting. Mom and I were outside one night and I noticed a gorgeous, huge moth near our light. I yelled at Art, Paul and Nicole and they came out. We were highly entertained by the moth. He appeared to be near the end of his life cycle but was still amazing. I thought it might be a Luna moth, but wasn't sure. We all took lots of pictures and wanted to share. It turns out that all that biology education I have does occasionally pay off as it is a Luna moth. Way early for our area, but he didn't know that. They only live about a week, do not eat and only live to mate. I'm gonna guess he did not fulfill his mission as we've never seen another one here, although according to Wiki, they are in the area. Enjoy the pics!

Art is holding it here. It was pretty attached to him and didn't want to let go! Probably was hoping it was finally going to get a chance to mate. Dammit all anyway!

Here it is on the ground. We were trying to get a good picture of the markings and coloring because we wanted to try to identify the species (ok, let's be real, I was probably the only person there thinking "species" because I'm such a HUGE NERD).

Here's a fabulous close-up. This is so pretty, I think I might change out my desktop.

The only reason this picture is here is because I have to brag about how very awesome my camera is. It was pitch black back here and I just aimed the camera in the general direction I thought the moth might be (as I couldn't see anything) and took the shot. This is completely the actual photo with no re-touching or enhancements. Yeah, Canon is the badass.

Awwww...I'm so in love with this moth. We never saw it again after it flew off. Hopefully, it found some poontang and fulfilled it's destiny.

As far as the garden goes, we actually had a total of NINE DAYS without rain so I managed to get all the tilling finished and got the entire thing either seeded or transplanted. I'm pretty tired right now and my weak ol' out of shape body is sore. I'm going to be a wreck tomorrow! Sorry Nikki, you're going to have to hear me whine all day.

Belinda

I was out in the garden today and realized I haven't posted pics of the delicious things we're growing. Hopefully, there's some fabulous things we can start eating. I already pulled out a radish and washed it up and enjoyed the spiciness. It was really good.

Yay!! Corn is coming up. Always fantastic when the seeds decide to start coming.

The tomatoes aren't ready to transplant just yet. The fun thing is that I sorta forgot to mark what was what. There's a mixture of cherry and Romas in here. I do know that each of the blocks has one type. So, that should be interesting when they get big and strong and are all mixed up. Aw well. It'll all grow the same I guess. The mystery will be solved in a while.

Here's one of the beds. Below is same bed, but a closeup.

All broccoli. Come on babies. Mamma wants some little "trees" to eat!

This one is pretty self-explanatory. They look good!!

How pretty! Too bad I have to pull these out for a while yet. I pluck each of the flowers (every day new ones come up) so the plants focus their energy on establishment and not fruits. Should be able to let some later season ones as long as the dirty birdies don't get them first.

Bed #2!

Closeup of bed. I HATE this mulch. The other beds have way better mulch which has fallen off the face of the earth. No matter where I go, I can't find the fabulous mulch that I got before.

Spinach and buttercrunch. Can't wait to enjoy the lettuce. Paul ate up some of the spinach.

Brussels sprouts. (Is it brussels or brussel? I never know.)

I decided to get the soaker hoses going for the long rows. I needed about 40 ft. I only could buy 25 ft and 50 ft so there's quite a bit extra. The connector is pretty awesome. You can select which of the hoses you want to be turned on and which off. Sweet.

Here's the soaker hoses in their new homes. They are soaking away!

Works damn well if I do say so myself.

Here's a worm that came up during the soaking. I have no idea why I took a picture.

Fun times in the garden!!

Belinda

Won't be quitting my "day" job

Turns out that I'm not so hot at grooming dogs. We've known this for some time, but this is almost record-breakingly bad. I shaved Brody as we usually do in the summer. Over the winter, she gets mats and nastiness that just can't be brushed out. And she's a Newfie mix so belongs in -20 degree weather. She's pretty much miserably hot anytime it's over 40 degrees, so we feel she's just more comfortable (she has yet to vote in on the issue). Unfortunately for Brody, we're cheap and refuse to actually PAY to shave her. Heh. Check out the pics and get a good laugh at my fabulous dog. She's totally show ready.

Here's a nice "before" shot. Notice the huge amount of hair.


Oh yeah. This is just wicked awesome.


I'm pretty sure she doesn't realize how bad this haircut is.


Here's a closeup of that super special bald spot. She moved. No, really. She did. It's not that I really suck at this. Ok, so I really suck at this.


She does look slightly depressed. It can't help that Paul just keeps laughing every time he sees her. My witty retort was that we could crank out the cash and have it professionally done. He just keeps on laughing. And he then added that she looked nothing like a dog. He keeps asking her if she's a rat. Meanie.

My services are totally free if you'd like me to do this to your dog. But make sure I have a six pack of beer ready. That's all I charge! Can you believe how cheap this service is? Your dog could look like this!!

Belinda

Busy, busy

Paul and I have been working our butts off recently which is why I haven't posted for a little while. One magical day, I walked into my backyard and my garden had been tilled by a wonderful neighbor. I had talked to him about possibly tilling it, but didn't know that I was acutally going to get it done prior to the massive rain we had (and tornados, but that's not pertinant to this post, lol).

We borrowed our other neighbor's tiller to try to grind up the chunks of clay into something a little more pliable (still too wet in case you were wondering). Now, I've never tilled in my life and it turns out that it's kinda hard. It made my weak, wussy body sore and my arms were shaking with all kinds of fatigue. Yes, I'm super out of shape. I did get the damn thing done and then today I laid out good ol' 10-10-10 all purpose fertilizer and started tilling again. Unfortunately, still too wet on over half. I got a couple of lines done and Paulie just HAD to butt in because he's a boy and they can't stand watching a woman do what they think they can do better. But anyway, he finished it up and then we realized that the last part was pretty dry and we got three rows tilled up. I then seeded for a while and got some stuff going (yes, Nikki, the corn is in).

Also, as a side note, the yukky ol' concrete path in the front is now a dead sexy granite and rock pathway and we're attempting to throw down some grass where the cedar trees used to live. Photos below! Let me know what ya'll think!

Tell me that doesn't look super awesome!

So very better looking. Now imagine one peony bush on either side in front of the porch and you get the idea. I would like to plant a couple of magnolias as well, but I think Paul is heading more towards the "less is more" concept. We'll see, hehe.

Even I can't believe just how much of a nerd I am. I'm actually CHECKING OVER the INSTRUCTIONS and seeing how to seed everything! I'm a nerdy nerd.

How awesome do those rows look? You can totally tell where we did the tilling. It's supposed to rain over the next couple of days, but I'm hoping it won't so I can get the rest tilled/seeded!

Yeah, it's pretty good sized! I look super far away in this shot.

Still nerding out over here! How many people bring a reference manual to the garden? ONE! Me, cuz I'm awesome like all that. I have to say that this outfit looks even worse on camera than in person. It's pretty awful but it's some of my play clothes!

Love ya,
B