Late Summer Gardening

 We planted some perennials this weekend that we bought on sale at our local nursery.

We are taking it slow, planting new bed by new bed, as we can...my hope is to cover the whole front yard in flowers, herbs and lovely leafy greens...kind of like an English Garden with edibles!

I'm not a big fan of grass--I'd rather have habitat for bees and butterflies.

The plants all look so small!!

But I am sore today with all the digging and soil-amending we did.  Picture: shovels and a pickaxe!

Our back yard compost pile (that I basically just kind of ignore) turned out to be amazing
and I used all we had to help enrich the soil.

Love the thought of last season's veg scraps feeding my flowers today!

We planted native plants like yarrow, echinacea, salvia and cat mint...

Will probably make adjustments to bed next Spring to make things fit better
and will get more filler plants like herbs and shrubs..but for now, its a good start!

Looking forward to when these plants get so established
that we can actually split them up and plant the newly divided plants into more beds...

An actual landscape professional was driving down our street and he stopped to admire our work...

I told him we basically didn't really know what we are doing--but that we had a general idea and we know what plants we like.  

He said we were totally on the right track and he loved our choices of these BOLD plants..

Bold, I thought...I like that!  

DIY Yarn Beard!

There really isn't a whole lot more to say...except that:

This weekend, I made a beard--out of yarn--for Luca...

I don't know where this idea came from and 

I am still not exactly sure why I made it...

but I do know HOW I made it

 and the directions are below...

so you can make your very own.

: )

I took a sheet of brown felt and holding it up to his face, 

I traced Luca's jaw line from ear to ear, around his chin.  

Then from ear to ear, under his nose--cutting out a hole for his mouth; 

(dipping just a bit from ear to nose instead of doing a straight line..)

I drew three lines below the hole for the mouth from ear to ear.

  Starting at the bottom and working my way up, 

I slowly machine-sewed loops of yarn close together on each line.

I snipped the loops.  

Then, I sewed loops of yarn on the top to make the mustache.

I sewed a piece of elastic on either side (by ears) to keep it on.

And then I gave it a trim...

very important...

and the fun part!

He kind of looks like Abe Lincoln, don't you think??

Canning on Labor Day

For a third year in a row, Magdalena and I have canned with Grandmom.  

This year, we processed 40 lbs of tomatoes which 

yielded about 18 quarts of raw-packed tomatoes.

The boys were a big help!  

And 20 lbs of peaches, which made about 12 pints of sliced peaches in a light, sweet syrup.

Hard working ladies...

Our kitchen was like a hot, humid swamp...fun!

But so worth it.

Peeling & slicing up tomatoes..

Then filling up jars--

Doesn't Magda look like one tough girl?!  : )

The peaches are sweet and bright and great over vanilla ice cream.

And nothing is as great as pulling a jar of tomatoes
off the shelf in the middle of January that you canned in the summer...

Thanks Magda and Grandmom for all your help & hard work!