Summer Surprises

It is the middle of June.  Spring finally sprung in Michigan and I also had another surprise sprung on me.  My parents came to visit and brought two of my grand daughters from Oregon.

The girl on the top is Lillian, then the next step is Xander who lives here, his alter ego (they are only 3 months apart) cousin Aubri Jo, and the bottom is Gabriel.  Finn was being uncooperative for pictures of course.  We had time to visit, and play.

We visited Sterling State Park and went swimming in Lake Erie.

We even got brave enough to attempt to ride a bike.

While spending time outside with them I have been doing a lot of gardening.

My beans are starting to come up.  See all the cottonwood seed pods laying around my garden?

Sunflowers are making an appearance.  We are still waiting for corn, and carrots they are taking a bit.  I may replant carrots later this week if I don't have more come up.  I do have radishes, and beets though.

I planted about 25 gallon pots full of flower seeds.  I found a store on Ebay that had seeds for $1.00 per pack so I picked up some columbine, pineapple sage, borage, lupine, Baptista (false indigo), African Daisies, Heliotrope, and foxglove.  Each pack had anywhere from 10 seed to 1,000.  I only planted a couple of seeds in each pot.  I figure for the $10 total I couldn't buy 2 different gallon plants for that amount. 

My lettuce and romaine is coming along even though I had to replant after a little bird decided my planter would be a great place to take a dust bath, this was just after my seeds had started to sprout.

The cabbage probably needs to be replanted and only 1 or 2 left in the barrel, the rest going into the garden.

Look Dawn  I have tomatoes!

OK I did cheat I bought it as a gallon plant, it is a grape tomato.  But look at this baby she is huge!

My honeysuckle is blooming too!

I love sitting out on our porch with all of the beautiful fragrant flowers.

We have been having problems with rodents and vermin due to the ancient ones keeping a chicken in their garage and throwing out enough food, and seed to feed a small army.  Recently we had a large raccoon, we attempted to catch it but were not successful, doesn't help when people mess with the live trap.  A couple of days ago I saw 2 little raccoons scrambling up the tree behind our chicken house.  I was not happy, so we set a live trap.

Its twins!  We caught one, and the other will not venture far away.  I feel bad, but I don't need them around my chickens either.  Unfortunately our county animal control does not do wild animal pick up.  Which means I need to figure out a way to move them safely  for both me and them to a wooded area where there is water, and at least 1 mile from me. I set up a 2nd trap, but could not catch the twin, but he/she figured out how to get the treat I had in the trap out.  We took the one which was caught to the nearest wildlife refuge near the marshes on Lake Erie.  Lots of trees, brush, and water.  We will reset the bigger trap and try to catch the twin so that hopefully we can reunite them.

I also had this little beauty that visited for a couple of days.

This is a luna moth.  We had a couple of very windy days and I guess it knew it could not fly so it hung out on the garage for a couple of days. 

Enough of the flora and fauna I have done a little sewing.  The color for June's RSC is Aqua.  I managed to get my foxes done.

I think I may have already decided on the backing for this quilt too.  Have you seen the new line by Cloud 9 Organics called Foxglove?  I think it will be perfect.

I also got my bag lady block done for this month too.

The family from Oregon left on Wednesday, which was also the first full day of summer vacation for the boys.  We have some summer schooling and tutoring which will be happening.  Hopefully I will have some time for sewing too.