Rain Barrel

We bought a rain barrel a while back and we finally got it set in place. I disliked the color. So, I spray painted it with Krylon Fusion (Satin Burgandy). It took three coats of paint to get it a nice color and coverage.

Dan cut the gutter (spout) to the height it needed to be and set it on a couple of cinder blocks. He filled the blocks with the dirt/sand he dug up. We will be surrounding it with stones or something similar so that it will not look so ugly.

It rained three days later. By the way, I had placed the rock in the plant area to weigh it down as I feared the gusts of wind we often get would blow it away.

It was full two hours later! I was shocked at how quickly it filled up.

The temperatures went down to below freezing overnight and the water froze.

Since then, I have discovered that the birds treat it like a bird bath. My Mockingbird would land on the rim to get a drink and the smaller birds such as the finches would land on the rock to get a drink.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the thing and attracting birds is a plus. (The feeders are nearby).

We have since purchased another rain barrel. I am planning to spray paint it in the satin Terra Cotta color soon. We have not quite decided on where to place it. We currently have three options: 1) In front of the house where we are going to eventually turn an useless area that is a pain-in-you know what to mow into garden area (it will be part of the garden), 2) behind the "hangar" (detached garage) where there is another gutter or 3) beside this first rain barrel and connect them together.

Wordy Wednesday {Catching Sunbeams}

Gracie has been going into my room practically every morning to catch sunbeams. I spied her doing this one morning and had to take a picture. Yes, she will lay somewhat on her back with her hind leg in the air. This is a natural thing for her to do. She is one happy relaxed kitty.

Macro Monday {Abby Gail}

{To see a larger image, go here.}

This girl turned ten months old on March 1st. {She was born around May 1st 2013.} She turned into a long lanky beauty. And yes, she is still a holy terror. She is our wild thing. This picture was in an effort to take a closeup of her precious black nose. And, oh my goodness, it turned out so wonderful! The sunlight was shining through the red camp chair and the blue is the flooring underlayment creating a psychedelic look. She has a sweet expression. She is both (sweet and wild). This is definitely a keeper.

{To see a larger image, go here.}

Here is an attempt to get a closeup shot of her fur. This is the best I could get considering her active nature. She has freckling along her body, spots on her belly and stripes on her legs. Her tail has stripes and ends with about three inches of just solid black. She is very exotic looking and very confusing to me. By the way, this is her winter fur. I suspect she is going to be the worst culprit of shedding around here in spite of her short fur.

{To see a larger image, go here.}

I tried so hard to capture a closeup of the bottoms of her paws. No such luck with her energy. This was the best picture I could get. The bottoms of all four paws are solid black which causes the outlining of her toes which I think causes a creepy look.

{Edited to Add: Linked up at Lily Pad Quilting: Rescue Me! Sponsored giveaway and linky party-hop!. Show off your rescues.}

Garden Beds

Dan building my potato bed. Although, it is not just for potatoes. This was started on February 1st and finished February 2nd.

We filled it up with dirt around February 23rd. I planted two different kinds of potatoes, two different kinds of onions, garlic and carrots. We shall see if they grow as we have had two freezing spells since I planted.

This is what the gardening area looks like. The bed on the bottom left is about a year old. The bed on the bottom right is new. The sandy dirt between the garden beds will eventually be used to fill up holes we make around the land. We already filled up a few fence post holes left behind from pulling them up.

Dan was feeling poorly on March 1st so he built the garden screen for me. That was to be my project; but, I let him do it because I wanted him to take it easy. I had already cut the wood for the frame. Dan put screws into the frame and attached the chicken wire to the frame. Talk about fun. NOT! I managed to get a small cut on my pinky finger helping Dan from the wire itself as I forgot to wear gloves. Dan got several extremely small cuts. The design is a modified version from the Square Foot Gardening book. And yes, most of my efforts is based off this book.

I planted strawberries on March 2nd (last Sunday). I am planning to purchase more strawberry plants as I would love to have half a bed of just strawberries. I planted the strawberries one per square foot. It is a four foot wide bed. I plan to eventually have a total of sixteen plants in a 4 x 4 grid. I was going to plant some vegetable seeds; but, I discovered that prediction of yet another cold front was coming through bringing freezing temperatures on Monday/Tuesday. So, I decided to put off planting the seeds one more weekend.

I do desire to have a herb garden. I even bought some seeds in hopes of establishing one this spring. I want it outside the back door where the herbs will be in mostly shade. My lavender and rosemary plants along the back of the house not only thrived in the shade during the extreme heat and drought of last summer; but, they also survived many freezing spells this winter!

Random Thursday {Helping Paws}

Previous episodes are: {Waiting} and Leaning Piles of Fabrics. Between those two episodes, I went outside a couple of days to put fabrics onto "bolts" as the weather was lovely. I put down cardboard from moving boxes on our farm table to keep the fabrics clean. I also let the cats out to roam a bit.

(2/19/2014)

Abby surprised me by joining me on the first day. She looks like she is getting big, does she not? She is! She is long and lanky. She jumped up on the table and tried to help me (playing); but, I would not let her as the pins were dangerous. She was happy to lie on my cutting mat and watch me in addition to the birds. (Bird feeders are hanging to the right of this picture).

I went back outside the next day and let the cats out again.

(2/20/2014)

Gracie decided to join me this time. She was content to just lie there and loved my infrequent attention.

Here is a bonus picture for y'all. Gracie wanted to ham it up for all my readers. Ha!