letters from the wilderness
I've been doing a monthly budget challenge since the beginning of June. We had received a ginormous electric bill that I wanted to reduce for the following month. I also wanted to reduce our spending, especially on groceries. The good news is I kept the electric bill the same for July, and only a $100... Continue Reading →
The river birch stump is out! It took my husband several months with the help of two of my sons to dig out the stump, fix the underground drainage pipes and grade the area. The roots were tough to dig up. Several wrapped around the brick wall and went under the patio on the other... Continue Reading →
It's been a moment. A long moment in the garden. We had a dry spring followed by a dry summer. Between the deer, the voles, and the lack of rain, I struggled to keep what we had and the new plants I installed this year. Our water bills were high for 2 months. And then,... Continue Reading →
Yesterday, we took a break from our usual weekend gardening projects and visited Reedy Farm in Monroe, VA for their Open Garden Day. It was the perfect day! I had forgotten how much I love daylilies, maybe because the deer like them, too. In Pennsylvania, we only grew the common orange daylilies that grow like... Continue Reading →
This will be the first of several updates. After starting this post, I made additional changes. Such is gardening life. First of all, I decided the netting on the crop cages was too dense for sunlight, not to mention pollinators. However, I still had the deer issue to consider. I removed the netting and switched... Continue Reading →
May was a lot. Lots of stuff going on in our family including losing a young cousin who could have been an Olympic hopeful; he was that good. For therapy, I spent a lot of time in the garden which I'll be sharing about here. First of all, the mother of all digs. Behold the... Continue Reading →
While my husband dug up the roots of the trees we had removed last fall, I started working on our fountain. When we moved in a few years ago, the fountain didn’t appear to be operational. The top piece had broken off. The bottom part was filled with irises and leaves. Last summer I moved... Continue Reading →
While I've been quiet here, I've been very busy in the garden. Some projects, some planting, some setting up new things for future plans. One of my favorite plants is geraniums. When I was a little girl, I was given a book about Carl Larsson, a Swedish painter. The paintings in the book focused on... Continue Reading →
Last fall, we had the river birch next to our home taken down. River birches are messy trees. This one kept dumping branches on the roof of the house which would end up in the gutters and cause the water to overflow and damage the wood around the front door. The water also eroded the... Continue Reading →
One of the projects I've been working on this spring is the drainage issue for our yard. All of the gutters go into the ground where black plastic pipe carries the water away from the house. Two areas where these underground black pipes drain down hill are a bit of a mess. Unfortunately, we have... Continue Reading →
2 dogs and a house 