What do you do when you have both a perennial orchard and annual vegetable beds? You document. If I hadn't created the folder with growing information for my fruits, I would constantly be stopping to look up the growing instructions for whatever plant is having a problem. Having a binder for your information is really … Continue reading Crazy Photos From The Garden
Who knew these make great wine? I started making my own wine last year. I was gifted a link to a gentleman who makes his own wine from store bought juice, granular sugar and bread yeast. I don't like sweet wines and I really didn't like how his recipe turned out. It's good to add … Continue reading Armenian Cucumber Wine
Winner of the most colorful visitor I've had in my garden. This is a flame skimmer. In late summer I have dozens of large dragonflies. They eat all of the mosquitos they can find. I think they are magnificent! But, this guy is definitely not your average dragonfly! I've only seen the one. In the … Continue reading Crazy Photos From The Garden
This is actually a fruit wine I made with my own fruit and a wine kit. The instructions below don't require any extra equipment. I've made shrubs for years. Fill a bowl with imperfect fruit, add sugar, spices, macerate the mix, strain it, age a few days and add a little white vinegar and you … Continue reading Homemade Alcohol for a Shrub.
Winner of the "weirdest seed pod" in the garden this year: Matelea reticulata (Pearl milkweed vine) I've never seen this milkweed vine before, despite it being native. This plant was so fascinating that I let it go and enjoyed the green flowers, with a pearlescent ball in the center. The seed pod was crazy! It … Continue reading Crazy Photos From The Garden
Homemade yogurt. What do you do if you want to get probiotics into your family but everyone is tired of yogurt? I started making homemade probiotic yogurt last year. It's delicious and everyone in the family agreed. Then, slowly, my husband stopped eating it and then both my sons didn't want it in their lunches … Continue reading Probiotic Water
I have a complete and utter obsession with Leonard Cohen. I have a very diverse interest in music. And although Leonard was a musician: I appreciate his works of poetry more. Leonard created some of the most tender and meaningful poetry of our time. Some poems taking decades to complete. The words are meant to … Continue reading Getting To Know Your Voice.
My grandmother used to make cinnamon pickles out of watermelon rind. It was a dessert she proudly put on our plates. They were delicious and in memory of her, I now make them yearly for my extended family and my kids. Last year I also tried a vanilla pickle which was pretty gross. I'm not … Continue reading Just In Time For Christmas: Modern Cinnamon Pickles And Lemon Candy Pickles!
So now that we're past the #!$@:! Frigging pool noodle lollipops, I have some relaxing projects to round out a candy themed Christmas display. First are the super simple candy cane straws. You can make canes with a bunch of PVC elbows but I think those look way more like a PVC pipe creation rather … Continue reading Candy Cane Straws and Ice Cream Sundae Outdoor Decorations
This tutorial shows you how to make the best looking pool noodle lollipops out there. Don't mess with the dollar store noodles. I decided to add some Christmas tutorials for my decorations outside. I'm creating a candy background for some characters from the Nutcracker Ballet. My first task was making some candy. I decided on … Continue reading Big Beefy Pool Noodle Lollipop Decorations
I joined Duolingo about ten years ago but never really messed with it. Then when my husband was working out of state for two years, I got serious about learning languages. It was my way to wind down. Being in charge of my two boys without any help was difficult. My older boy was in … Continue reading Language Learning
So. I know better than to try and grow a large scale "defiance garden". That's what I call growing things that your climate and soil won't support. But, I'm a gardener. The whole point of gardening is to place plant matter in places that didn't have them before. Basically anything you purposefully put in the … Continue reading What If It’s Too Hot? Growing Fruit Trees In Texas.
Hmmm. Super long, snake bean. Usually when I am deep diving into large seed catalogs and I see "like ____, but better" I roll my eyes and think OK, I'm game. Prove it. This is what happened when I saw and then purchased seed for the Indian Python Snake Bean at rareseeds.com (AKA Python Snake … Continue reading Like Green Beans… But Better?
I saw this and I had to make one! All of my Halloween decorations are cheap, but some require a little planning. If you want to make this you will need to find the pieces and order them so that this is done before Halloween! Get my new e-book on Amazon! It’s free with Kindle … Continue reading Cousin It… Oh Yeah!
Here we go! It's Halloween time on my blog again! I hope you enjoy the tutorials! I love making Halloween decorations! I also love to make CHEAP decorations. I don't think I can find a good reason to buy a lot of what I see in the stores. I am pretty happy with a lot … Continue reading Milk Jug Spider
I made my original dead body bag about 4 or 5 years ago and I've learned some things about how to make these after having to repair it a few times. Get my new e-book on Amazon! It’s free with Kindle Unlimited or $3.99 to purchase. There are projects in this e-book that you won’t … Continue reading How To Make A Bagged Dead Body For Halloween
I had two main projects I wanted to accomplish this Halloween. One project was my Silver Faceless Aliens and the second was some posts with masks, or: Haunted Heads! I decided to do these after I saw a pin. But unfortunately, no matter which pin I opened I couldn't find the instructions to make these. … Continue reading Haunted Heads
I love making Halloween decorations, but I think they should be nearly free. Most of the things in our yard are homemade (with the exception of a couple of blow up displays and some skeletons.) I need my display to make a big impact (because we are trying to get people to walk down a … Continue reading Trash Bag Witch Circle/Ghost ring
It's Halloween time again! I'm trying something new this year! Silver Faceless Aliens! They are human height and shape and creep everyone out! I instantly had the idea after looking at this mask. So much fun! Like all of my projects: it's super cheap and has a big impact. I'm making four. Here are the … Continue reading Silver Faceless Aliens
Here we go again! It's time for my Halloween tutorials! I'm always working on our Halloween display. This year I decided I needed jellyfish! I love spooky stuff but the creepy, gory, sicko type stuff just doesn't light my fire. However, glowing awesome jellyfish sounded way too cool to pass up! I got this idea … Continue reading Glowing Jellyfish: Outdoor Halloween
Crazy Green Thumbs 