Summer, May-July 2015

If you're on your phone I suggest swapping to a computer.  This post contains nearly allllll the pictures I've taken in the past two months, mostly in chronological order.  It's a lot.  And this is what's been keeping me from writing, besides laziness and Internet availability, of course.

Here we go!

 

This horse was such a sweet pest.  She kept sniffing my hair, my clothes, she tried to pull one of my shoes off.

 

Poppies in May

 

Poppies in May

One thing that's kept me busy has been more work.  Boots and I started a lawn care business in May.  Boots does the cutting and such and I am weeder número uno.  This is the flower bed in front of the horse three pictures above.  It took me seven hours to weed it one day and since then everything has grown and gotten so beautiful.  You'll see that a little later.

 

 

Boots and Mayhem catching a quick nap while waiting for my sister's graduation to start.

 

 

We finally made a nurse out of this girl!

 

 

We graduated this sister from high school.  It rained, we got soaking wet, and looked like rats.

 

 

My daddy finally got a boy that wants to drive all of his tractors.

 

 

It's a little difficult figuring out how to ride babies on rocking horses.

 

 

We also graduated my cousin from high school. 

 

 

Vacuum cleaner Mohawk!

 

 

Too early one morning.

 

 

This was Mayhem's first attempt at putting his shoes on.

 

 

Figuring out the pattern for my quilt squares one night in the living room floor.

 

 

Our waterfall in our VBS room.

 

 

Pinning the layers of my sister's baby's quilt that I'm working on.

 

 

I have no words for this mess.

 

 

He sleeps just like his daddy- flopped around everywhere with the blankets ripped off.

 

 

The zinnias and gladiolas one early June morning.

 

 

Tiny recliner for a tiny man.

 

 

Peek-a-boo!

 

 

I'm always washing dishes and it always looks like this.  Ay yi yi!

 

 

 This is "my" garden at my uncle's house before the okra grew up past our heads,

 

 

before the tomatoes grew up and we cut the blackberry vines back,

 

 

and before we pulled up the dead English peas and the squash grew so wide you can't walk around it.

 

 

My couch looks like this a couple times a week, too. 

  

 

Putting penguins in the house I built him. 

 

 

Isn't this hibiscus beautiful?  Plus, Mayhem in the background mocking the dog yawning.

 

 

Riding the horsie!

 

 

Fabric shopping!

 

 

Purchases from our favorite fabric store.

 

 

We picked blueberries for five hours one morning.  8 (or was it 9?) of these pans full.

 

 

 

"Take Scout pit-churr!"

 

 

"Take them pit-churr!"

 

 

I love taking sleeping pictures of him.

 

 

I finished a quilt.

 

 

A new cow trough swimming pool.

 

 

Shasta daisies in July

 

 

Sunflowers in July

 

 

Indoor fishing

 

 

Fighting a fever from too many ant bites

Pee As In Patio

Ever since Chloe died, we've pretty much spent zero minutes in our backyard.  It needs some serious beautifying but we'll get to the outside after we finish the inside.  Which will probably be in a million zillion years.

Recently, our back patio called Patio Protective Services on us and filed a complaint stating, "neglect."

Really, Patio?  Was that really necessary?

Apparently so.

The past few days have been seasonably chilly, you see, and poor Patio has been getting......what's a nice way of putting this......

Ehh......just think about it.

That is so not nice, Nikki.  Not cool at all.

Bad dog!  You stop that right now, ya hear!

Clearly something has to be done before Boots and I get thrown in the pokie and they hide the key!

Enter the garden rake (I broke it) and the broom.  And maybe 20 minutes of action time and 1 portion of bothering Boots with my silly requests for moving the grills.  The nerve of that girl!

Nothing short of miraculous, am I right?

Pay no attention to my outdoor bathroom death zone.  Like I said, a zillion billion years.  And, also, don't come and steal my generator.  (It's not really mine!)

Leave Your Socks on the Ceiling, Boots

One of the "duties" of being a blogger is that you read other people's stuff. You subscribe, you comment. You wish.

Mostly, for some reason, I read blogs about people that have kids or are having kids or want kids. Not that I'm having kids, but I might one day and I'd like to know what people are experiencing with their kids. I subscribe to photography, gardening, and cooking blogs- all of these things I want to be better at. Recently, I've become a fan of the home management/organizing and the "make your whole house pretty" blogs.

That's where the "you wish" comes in. I wish I had a beautiful house filled with beautiful things and a beautiful garden outback. So I aspire. I set out to make my house the cleanest on the block with everything in its place and nothing out of place, fussing at my husband to pick up his socks and throw his used floss away. I plan to toil in my yard raking, burning, planting, and weeding until it is perfect.

I came home from work yesterday with an itch to rake my whole acre yard into one big pile before dark. To make a long story very short, I didn't wear gloves and gave myself a blister and three splinters, one of which hurts so bad it can't be described nicely. My finger is red, swollen, and angry. Much pain.

I'm laid up today. I can't wash dishes, can't fold clothes, I barely washed my own hair and forced myself to wash both dogs, one of which appreciated her washing so much she's wearing dirt on her nose right now! After sitting around all day going stir-crazy I really lost my cool with my bum finger after Boots left for work. I wrote in my notebook, thought about paying bills, walked circles in the house.

Thoroughly aggravated, I set fire to a barrel of sticks in the backyard and then smothered it with leaves. It took the flames a while to grow back and sitting there waiting, I had an ephipany.

I am in such a hurry to fix my house and yard, make everything beautiful! I want everything done yesterday, but there's never enough time. Why can't I be like that fire and take my time? What does it matter that I don't have fresh paint and my carpet is old? Who cares that I don't have a magazine-worthy garden? Nobody comes to visit us anyways so why can't I burn it up slowly, piece by piece?

Too Much !, Not a Lotta Sense

Yay! Spring! And with Spring comes pollen! And pollen means staying inside spring cleaning is an excellent suggestion opposed to sneezing your head off outside! Yay!

A New Back Yard!

Remember when I posted about the smell of destruction?
Things have been happening to our back yard.
Boots and his friend, Jay, have been very busy being destructive.

Remember the way the outside used to look?
Its all ripped up now.
Check it out.

This shed......

......is the same shed as this one!

(This shed was stolen carried away a few hours after it was torn down.

Probably wound up in a scrap yard somewhere.)

See all the bushes and growth behind this tree?

Undergrowth, no more!

Before

After

Our yard doesn't look like such a nice home for snakes now.

I bet the neighbors are happy, unless the snakes moved to their yards.