New Gardens!

I have been a busy weekend-gardener these past two weeks, creating, digging out, planting, and mulching 2 new perennial gardens! At the top of our driveway on the left, before you would turn in to "park", there is an area that is all fill (very rocky fill, I found out) with random patches of grass, dandelions, daisies, and lupine. I wish I had some "before" shots to show the difference, but I don't, so hopefully you can tell the "before" by the landscape around the beds. Both of the new gardens are on a slope.

I made this garden last weekend- the majority of the rocks used for the border were in the soil... talk about fun digging. I dug it all out by hand, using my handy screwdriver to pry out rocks. I had already planted 2 sedum here last year, just kind of mixed in with the grass/weeds/etc., those are the the bottom and top plants. The 5 plants in the center are the newly planted ones: 2 stonecrops,snow-in-summer, sandwort, and an ice plant in the center.

This next garden I made today. This one was fun but A LOT of work... I basically completely dug out the side of the hill by hand (that means no shovel, just hands and screw driver), went searching around for flat rocks (there are plenty of rock piles along the edge of the pasture), and got some help carrying and moving a couple of large rocks (for example the one at the top- that is all one rock and it was very heavy). So, in this garden, I planted a white butterfly bush at the top, 3 purple salvias, 2 bright yellow-green stonecrop, 3 smaller yellow-flowering sedum, and then 3 lobelias (the annual kind) on either side. Oh yeah, Sasha made it into this picture too.

Here is a close up of this last garden, showing the great rock I found! My mom saw me carrying it and thought it was a board because of its great shape.

So here's what that slope area looks like now:

I still have some cleaning up to do (for example all of the rocks I dug out of the soil that didn't make the cut for the borders), but I think it looks pretty good so far!

Animals I have seen this spring in the road while I am driving

All of these pictures I will be using I found in google searches...

First up, a pheasant. I saw a beautiful pheasant in the road the other day, just hanging out. When I googled maine pheasant this is what I got first:

creeeeeepy

Here is what the ALIVE one I saw looked more like

Last week, a bluebird flew infront of my car,they are so pretty.

I have also seen lots of wild turkeys in the road.

Of course, I have seen a lot of squirrels and chipmunks.

Probably the coolest thing yet that I have seen was a huge owl that was sitting on the side of the road (at night) by a marsh outlet, it flew off as I approached in my car though.

Now, last but certainly not least, this dog has been in middle of the road twice this past week on my way to work... I nearly hit it the other morning. I even pulled over and tried to call it over so I could check its tags and call its owner but all he/she did was bark at me, so I said nevermind!

Happy Easter!

I didn't take any "family" shots today, but I did get a nice picture of last night's sunset in the Damariscotta Mills... it was beautiful!!

Oh yeah, here's an Easter picture...

wooo hooo April 11th!!!

Gorgeous *Spring* Day

It is so nice outside today! I went on a walk to check out one of DLWA's trails this afternoon which was a lot of fun! I saw a turtle (!), a snake (!), and a cute little woodpecker (!). Also, due to all the rain we've been having... there was water EVERYWHERE, in places especially where there isn't water in the summer- beautiful!!

Pretty Night & Pretty Puppies

Last night, mom and I went to check out some puppies for Peggy. All together, there were 5 chocolate lab puppies and they were all cute, cuddly, and playful.

Grammy's Art Show Opening

I arranged for Grammy Sis to have her art on display at the Pemaquid Watershed Association in Damariscotta. 30% of proceeds will be given to the PWA to help support their organization and its mission. Cathy, Chuck, Grammy and I were all in attendance at the opening which was well-attended and had some good snacks!

Here are the 3 of us posing in front of 2 of Grammy's paintings: