NO ITS NOT FETCH!!!

i'm working up to putting the hoses away for winter. so i'm doing all the last fall cleanup. which means the bricks from the tortoise enclosure get taken outside and sprayed down. sweetpea makes a mess of them, they get pooped on and sloshed on from her bath tub, and food gets smashed into them. i take em outside twice a year, spring and fall, and hose everything down.

her enclosure, the bricks on the bottom right are where the heat lamp is clamped above. she can go hang out on the warm bricks if she gets cold.


the bricks. in total there are 8 of them.


the blue square i drew is where her bath tub gets set in for her. (cant leave it the bathtub there, she fouls it and dumps it over and makes a huge muddy mess)


bathtub


so anyway, i was hauling the bricks outside, and they're heavy. and i was throwing them off the porch step onto the ground over by the hose. and the dogs saw me throwing them and ran over and stood where i was throwing them, all ready to catch the next bricks i carried out! and i'm standing there holding the bricks yelling "NO! IT'S NOT FETCH!" and they're all jumpy and eager, waiting for me to toss them. *palmface*. there will be no trying to catch BRICKS, you dorks!

then they decided that whatever was stuck on the bricks was tasty *GAG*. so i turned on the hose and changed their minds. now the bricks and the plastic bin they were in are all clean and drying off in the sunshine. the hose water is REALLY cold.

the greenhouse heater

the new heater in the greenhouse


its a nice 'oil radiator' style heater


inside the greenhouse view of the new cord 'hatch' and the new garage outlet


the cords are strung up around the greenhouse shelf supports to keep them from touching the floor, but also to create a lower point, in case condensation occurs on the cords, that it wont travel from outdoors up and around thru to the heater.


the tray of lettuce out in the greenhouse


the tray of radish greens out in the greenhouse, a little droopy because the greenhouse still heats up in the sun, even it the nights get down to freezing.



79`F INSIDE the greenhouse, but only 40`F outside. sunshine makes a huge difference.

minion crochet

mom crocheted a minion hat, little minion slippers, and big minion slippers


and a minion purse

powerwashing the porch steps

the porch/sunroom sticks out off the back of the house. it has steps on three sides. the north side is perpetually in the shade, and tends to grow moss. so about every other year my dad brings up his power washer and we make it go away. its a rather time consuming chore, as the moss likes to stay where it is.

the moss gets pretty bad on the north side.


i didnt think to take pictures until after i'd already started


the first pass


farther down. dont mind the leaves, they were falling constantly the whole time i was spraying. i did sweep off the steps before i started. the leaves just kept coming.


even the stringers underneath the steps have to be sprayed off, which requires some creative bending and maneuvering to reach properly.


dont they look SO much better?!!?


the nice clean steps on the east side. they're only half in the shade, so they dont get as bad as the north side, but the right end, closest to the camera, gets bad. the left end stays pretty good. the unpictured steps on the south side are nearly always in the sun, so they stay pretty clean.


here is an old picture of the porch on the back of the house, before we replaced the rotted steps.

greenhouse heater cord hatch

my new extension cord for the heater in the greenhouse. it LOCKS! you push the button in, plug in the cord, and let the button go, and you cant unplug it! it stays plugged in until you press the button. i got one of these extension cords for my leaf blower too. that cord was ALWAYS coming unplugged. i LOVE these cords, they're awesome.


i made a special panel on the outside of the greenhouse that can swing all the way closed when the cord is out.


the flap swings opens to let the cord plug thru.


then slides mostly closed while the cord is plugged in.


blueberry oatmeal cookies


train puzzle


of my four different pear tree varieties, only the luscious tree turns red. the other three only turn yellow.

doggy videos

puppy REALLY likes to destroy the sunflower heads. he just bites and rips and spits. molly comes up and is all what the hell are you doing? i dont get it! hey- i'll eat that!


conversations with molly

sugar beet vs sweetpea

i planted lots of things in the first raised bed that didnt come up this year. an entire row of sugar beets, an entire row of rutabagas. of both of those rows, only one sugar beet came up. and while it was growing i couldnt tell if it was a sugar beet or rutabaga. i'm not familiar enough with their large foliage to tell the difference. it wasnt until i pulled it up this fall that i knew it was a sugar beet.


but only one wasnt enough to go to the trouble of boiling down and trying to make sugar. so i gave it to sweetpea thinking she might like the greens.


its rather huge.


sweetpea investigated it


nibbled a bite or two, and then ignored it.


after it was ignored, i decided to peel it, make it more edible for sweetpea. the sugar beet was pretty hard.


the peeled bits she nibbled on


but didnt eat very much of it