A Great Steaming Pile

I’ve been getting mulch, bucket by bucket, from a wonderful tree company, Preservation Tree Service.  I haven’t hauled any for a while, because it’s just been too hot, but when I was spreading out the sheet mulch early this spring, I was going multiple times per week, sometimes even multiple trips per day.  I probably [...]

Charlotte Changes

I looked at the spider web, and saw something weird hanging in the middle… I thought, “Aww, something killed Charlotte.”  But, it turned out, it was something entirely more wonderful.

Charlotte was changing her skin.

The knees are always the hardest part…

And, she’s out.

She hung like this, soft-bodied and vulnerable, until it was too dark for the [...]

A Purple Passion

A lot of lovely purple is happening in the garden.

This passionflower, Passiflora x “Incense,” is really coming into its own – it puts out three to five of these spectacular blooms each day.

This is Purple Majesty millet; I was worried that the photo was out of focus, looking at it on the camera, but then [...]

Summer in the Garden Goes ZOOM, Part III: CHICKENS

I got one additional chicken, this one a young laying hen; now, we have a total of six. She was advertised as a Black Copper Maran, but I am pretty sure that she’s a mixed breed; she hasn’t got the feathery feet and chocolate-brown eggs of a true Maran.  She’s very sweet, though, and has [...]

Summer in the Garden Goes ZOOM, Part II: BUGS

I’ve never had an organic garden before.  I grew up in a house on an acre lot, and there was lots of nature going on… but the garden and the flowers were always sprayed with strong chemicals, and so there wasn’t much in the way of garden insect life.  Here on the creek, and in [...]

The Garden in the Summer Goes ZOOM, Part I: PLANTS

I’ve been busy with a lot of different things, and haven’t gotten around to posting about the gardens and the chickens and such. So, I’m going to do this in a couple of posts, breaking it up by theme.

This is what the garden looks like now. Some of the parts are finally [...]