Fence Post Headboard

I am starting the new year in a crafty way!
The bed in our guest room doesn't have a headboard, and I have always liked the 'picket fence' type. We replaced our backyard fence back in November and saved some of the old boards. I also had 2 posts that we got from Fred's brother when they moved. So I set off to create!

Fred gave me a small lesson on how to use the sander....

and then let me give it a try! 

this sanding business is messy!

Ready for paint

I wanted to give 'crackling' a try, so I started with a coat of black paint

I painted both posts black and let them dry. After that, I put on a coat of the 'crackel' solution. Had to let that sit for 2-4 hours. Didn't take a picture of that since it's clear... 

Finally, I put on a THIN coat of flat white paint. I have done this before and learned that if your top coat is too thick, you don't get a lot of the crackle effect. 

 You can see the 'cracking' of the paint almost immediately. It's very cool! 

 these go on top of the posts....

I now have the posts finished

 I will be starting on the fence. I originally was going to use the old fence boards, but Fred has a fence section left over and so it is saving some time and work to use it instead.

I will be doing the same process with this. Sand it down, paint it black, put on crackle coat, paint it white. 

I hope to get it all done so Fred can put it together for me this weekend. So excited!!! 

Am I being what I need to be??

Ok, first off, I struggled with how to title this blog....

Our pastor was preaching on the Beatitudes last month, and it was really convicting. My relationship with my mom is complicated, to put it mildly. But I have come to realize that I need to be the kind of daughter my mom needs me to be, regardless of what she does on her side. I can't control what she does/says/feels. But I CAN control me. (well, at least work hard on it)

And God has been working on me on other areas:
The other day, I was at Walmart returning something. There was a man ahead of me. A big, burly black man. He had on a sweat shirt with a 'gangster' snowman, and I thought it was funny. He was cashing a check. When I caught a view of his face, he was crying. Tears running down his face and looking miserable. It broke my heart.  I don't know what was wrong. Did he just loose his job? Did his wife leave him? Did someone he loved just died??   What could bring such a big guy to tears in public?
I felt I needed to do something. Say to him I was sorry for the pain he was in. Pray with him/ for him..... But I didn't know him. Would he think I was crazy? Would he tell me off? Would I embarrass him?

AG!! I did nothing... I found Fred in the grocery section. Told him about the man. I thought we should stop right there and pray for the man. But we didn't.... Would people look at us funny? We had groceries to buy and get back home...  Ok, so we will pray in the car after we shopped.  We didn't.

I thought about him that night when I went to bed and that's when I prayed for him. I felt terrible.
I wasted so many opportunities.
There has been in the news about Tim Tebow. That he should 'tone down' his faith. He answered graciously and stood firm.
 I desire to be bold in my walk, but I have a way to go. Prayers Appreciated!!

We have watermelon!

So, we waited and waited and waited for our little watermelon to get big enough to pull out. Fred and I have no idea how tell when that time is, so it was hard for us to wait!
I finally decided that it didn't look any bigger in a couple of days, we plucked it!

Then we put it in the fridge to chill. I have been so worried that after all this waiting for it, that it wouldn't taste very good.  I just cut it open, and it is GREAT! so SWEET!

I am thinking that by the way it looks inside, it probably could have done with a few more days on the vine. But it tastes pretty good in spite. I am so excited!!

We still have about 6 on the vines, not sure if they will make it, but they are getting bigger! I guess I must have planted them too late. But I read somewhere that the hotter the climate, the later to plant them. Oh well, Next summer we'll try earlier and see if was can have some for Labor Day!

Watermelons for Halloween?

First off, shame on me! Haven't posted since June!  And it's not like I don't have anything to say! haha

Oh well, not going to try and catch up with all we did this summer, except to say it has been HORRIBLY hot! I lost the corn that was coming up. One by one the heat took them. I had a bunch of vines from the watermelons, but no melons. I thought about digging it all up, but figured I would just let them go on.

Last week, I was in the backyard and looked at the garden. And there was a watermelon! It looked more like a cucumber in size, but I was excited!  So I have been diligent about watering and keeping an eye on it. Grace and Savanna went back there Sunday and they say they counted 6 of them! Granted, 2 are coming up, the others are still tiny, so we'll see how they go.

I planted them back in July, thinking we would have watermelon for Labor Day. I joked with Grace that maybe we'll use watermelons instead of pumpkins to carve our Jack O Lanterns!  haha

I have no idea if they will grow all the way or if they will taste good. But I am just so tickled to see something growing in our little garden even with this awful heat/drought!

A quick Post..

I guess it's 'feast or famine' with me when it comes to blogging.

But I took a couple of pictures this morning and wanted to post them

this is a new bloom in our front yard.

I am new at having lillies, and didn't know they came back every year.

 And it seems I have more than I did last year too.

I planted a bunch of sunflowers a while back, some of them the 'mammoth' kind.

I love sunflowers and have been waiting anxiously for them... Here is the 1st one!

and I got a 'mammoth' butterfly to go with it! So cool!

There are a couple more right coming right along.

I am hoping I can make a nice bouquet for the dining table.

 

As far as our vegetables, I gave up on the okra.

Some kind of bugs and worms just killed it all.

But our corn is coming up fast!

 

And the honeydew melons are doing well so far.

I had a couple of sprouts for the pumpkins,

but something happened and they withered.... bummer....  

The watermelons seems fine so far too. Hope they stay that way.

Bluebird Eggs!

I checked the birdhouse the other day and saw this!!! 

I showed them to Savanna yesterday and she noted that there are 5 and 1 'ugly duckling'.  I don't have much experience with bird eggs so I don't know if it's a 'bad' egg and won't hatch or what....

And does anyone know how long it takes for them to hatch? I sure don't want to miss it!

On a completely not related  direction....here is a picture of my Baby! 

So stinkin' cute!!

She sure does make my heart happy!

in this picture, Kaya is aggravating Baby, trying to bite her butt! haha

It's funny because it's usually Baby bugging Kaya

Now, here is a rare scene.... I caught them both sleeping close together on my bed!

It's like raising kids all over. They fight like... well, I won't say it....

But then they give me a glimmer of hope that they will learn to get along.

Valerie, Valerie, how does your garden grow?

I just saw the last post was a month ago... oops! Well, here are some new pictures of our little garden!

these are the carrots... got quite a few!

this was an interesting one, guess we planted the seeds too close!

in the place of the carrots, I planted honeydew melons, they are coming right along!

after we pulled out all the green beans, I planted pumpkins in their place

and in the place of the sweet peas, I planted watermelon!

 Hoping to have some for Labor Day!

my sunflowers are on the verge of blooming and the gourd vines are doing great!

I pulled out the last of the zuchinni and onions yesterday. We ended up getting about 8 zuchinnis and a ton of onions this time. In their place, I planted corn.  I have been told that corn and watermelon are tough to grow, but we'll see what happens! 

Our peppers are coming along, albeit slowly. I have 1 plant with 3 little peppers coming, so that gives us hope!

So, besides the garden, I have been keeping busy with the birds! I found a website called 'Dunscraft' that sells anything and everything you could want in regards to birds! (might not be a good thing for me!)

I bought a birdhouse and had Fred mount it on the back fence

a blue bird has taken advantage of it and has started a nest in it!!

I am so excited! I hope she has her babies there!

The fruits of our labor!

Call me a goofy city girl, but I am getting such a kick out of our little garden!

 We have been able to pick a few things from it, much more is still to come!

The tomato 'topsy turvy' is doing great. We have a bunch of tomatoes,

but this is the 1st one ready. It had the privilege of becoming part of Fred's 'pico de gallo'. haha

 I was watering the garden when I noticed this big guy! I was shocked!

Fred pulled this carrot to see how big they were getting.

Looks pretty good, but it looks like they have a little more growing to do. 

our first pickings! the sweet peas and green beans are almost ready too.

there are quite a few strawberries, though they aren't getting very big

 And here is what happened to the zuchinni!

We had it for dinner along with some steaks Freddy sent Fred for his birthday. Yum!

our peppers weren't growing much so I put them in separate pots to give them more room.

 I think they are doing better now. 

I am already thinking about the next crops!! this has been fun!

Garden Update!!

I can't believe it's been over a month since I blogged! I am such a slacker!  Our garden is going crazy. We definitely planted too many seeds in the area. But our logic was that we would probably not have good luck, so maybe just a few would sprout. We are learning!  Fred has decided we will be making a larger garden our next go round. We have the yard space for it.....  Ok, here are some pics!

these are the tomatoes... pretty good so far!

Our little strawberry plants weren't doing too great in their individual containers,

so I put the 3 together. there are still strawberries coming!

So here is our box garden....

The squash has totally taken over, we planted way to many of them

our little okra are being covered by the squash, it will be a miracle if we get any

same with our carrots... I think we planted them too early, it took them a while to sprout, and now the squash are coming over to them too... bad squash!

at first, when I didn't think the carrots took,

I went and planted melons in the same spot as the carrots.

We have some coming!

the green beans are coming right along,

and I am not worried about the amount, the more the merrier!

the same with the sweet peas, they are everywhere!

our little herb boxes aren't working real well.

I am thinking of transfering them to a bigger container,

 and planting the Thyme straight in the ground.

we have different kinds of peppers in the small containers too and

 I will be transplanting them to something bigger as well...

I also planted some sunflowers seeds around the yard. One of them is supposed to be a "mammoth" kind, so we will see how big those will get! I love sunflowers!

Our Garden Adventure

Well, it's been a few weeks since we started our little garden. Some things are taking off, while others are non-existent...
 Here are our containers of herbs and peppers.... looks like the basil (or cilantro, we forgot which) is coming up, but the peppers are MIA.... So I planted more seeds today and we'll see what happens..

my little tomato plant... it gets some yellow flowery things, but no tomatoes to be seen.

the little 'stick'  in the pot underneath the tomatoes is a raspberry 'bush'... not sure what is going on with it since I don't know what it is supposed to look like as it grows. I guess I should research that, huh?

Our onions seem to be doing ok....

the green beans are good too, though I am seeing some of leaves looking

 like they are getting eaten by bugs? not sure...

our carrots are nowhere to be seen, so this morning I planted some melon seeds. Again, not sure I was supposed to do that, but figured I had nothing to loose...

the summer squash is looking good, but the okra hasn't showed up.

 I think one of the problems is that we put our box garden too close to the fence and

 part of it is not getting full sun..  But I planted more okra among the squash this morning to see what happens

our peas are doing pretty good, kinda competing with the green beans!

So, over all, I guess it's working out. We are definitely learning as we go.

On an unrelated topic, here is a picture of my birdfeeders in the backyard.

 I have 5 of them....

I am not exagerating when I say I fill them up in the morning, and by evening they are empty!

It is crazy! I feel like word got out that there is a 'bird seed buffet' in my backyard

that all the birds are talking about!!

We have a lot of black birds right now and I am not fond of them. I wish I knew if there was a specific bird seed that they don't like so I could discourage them from coming. They are overpowering the cardinals and finches.... :(