Setting Goals - Part deux

My goals for this week are:

1)  Get as much stuff together as possible and have a yard sale.  This includes, making signs and posting them, bringing stuff up from the basement that I have already set aside, scanning the rest of the house for crap I can get rid of, getting change, bags and newspaper for purchases, setting up, then taking whatever is left over after to the Cancer Patient Services Thrift Store in town.  Hopefully this is a good weekend for a yard sale - long weekend and the fair is in town.

2)  Do as much gardening as possible while outside taking care of the yard sale.  This only makes sense, because I will be outside anyways.  Might as well get something done.

3) If it is raining, clean the garage instead of gardening (I was going to write“instead of doing number 2”, but my inner 10 year old quickly realized what that could be interpreted as, so I put gardening instead.  Hehehe....number 2...)

4)Write at least 2 blog entries next week.

5) Walk Wicket (my dog - for those non-nerds out there, my dog is named after the Ewok on Star Wars) a minimum of twice a day.  I have been seriously slacking on walks lately.  We have a fairly big backyard, so she does get lots of outside time, but she still needs her walks even though she is an old girl (she turned 15 on Canada day.  I think that is around 90 in human years.  Grandma dog!)

These are very short term goals.  I am starting off small.  I am, though, working on some longer term goals that I hope to post soon.

Busy Busy Busy - Wordless Wednesday with Linky

Well, my blogging has gone to the way-side the last month and I have only been doing wordless wednesday the last few weeks.  I swear I have a good excuse.  It's been GORGEOUS out!  so I did some gardening and went to a few weddings.  Time better spent than being on the computer I'd say.

Tree peony - Shimi Nashiki

Tree peony (same as previous pic) - has 2 different blossoms

Double White Lilac

Double White Lilac blossom - smells amazing!

Large Yellow Iris

Sloan by the side of the garden

Peony

Peony

Clematis - This is an old bloom.  New blooms are a dark purple.

Clematis - "Hakurei"

Lavender

dug all the weeds out of this corner.

going through the arbor to the sitting area.

My blank canvas where the wagon is.

Then we went to a beautiful wedding on the Summer Solstice (June 21).

The venue was amazing and very classy.  I didn't take many pics because there were 3 photographers who were kind of paparazzi-esque.  We had a great time and the food was delicious.  Also they had lattes - I was in heaven.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Garden update with Linky

I finally worked a few good hours in the garden this week and I am really pleased with my progress.  Considering I was super pregnant last summer and couldn't do much work, the garden is not as bad as I thought it was.  I do have some culprits that are trying to choke out my flowers though.  Maybe you recognize some of these little buggers from your garden?

Colt's foot

Field Horsetail

Gout weed or Ground Elder

Star of Bethlehem

Beautiful, but can spread like crazy.

As well as some dandelions and a vine weed that I am unsure the name of.  So, as you can see I had a lot of work to do digging up these invasive little plants and making sure I ripped out most to all of their root system.  I'm not done with the little buggers but now some of my garden looks like this:

Wahoo!  Progress!

Allium

Tulip

Viola

Wordless Wednesday w/ LINKY ~ gung-ho gardener

I love to garden.  I didn't have much opportunity last year to do it since I was super preggers and we had MANY very humid days.  So most of my time was spent tending to my indoor plants.  This year though, my gardens will be well taken care of.  Here are some pics from previous years.

My canvas.  Spring 2009

This is the outline we started with.  I wanted more.

It turned into this. Originally I wanted the whole front yard as gardens. 

Summer 2009

Spring 2010

Hellebores

Hellebores "Green Lotus"

Pansies, Painted Fern, "Praying Hands" Hosta, Jack in the Pulpit

Tree Peony in bloom.  "Shima nishiki"

Spring 2012

Spring 2012

white Columbine

purple and yellow Columbine

Hostas, Astilbe, Dwarf Goat's Beard

Majority of this is Bee Balm.  I eventually moved it because it was taking over.

Early Summer 2012

I stopped taking pictures of the garden shortly before my daughter was born in August.  I actually extended this garden a bit while I was pregnant instead of weeding.  It was a lot easier than weeding.  I have more gardens that I will take before and after pictures of this year (they are looking pretty terrible) and I will post more pictures of my front garden since the changes and our veggie garden.  Can't wait to get out in the sunshine!