Happy Happy Saturday my friends. I hope all is well within you and around you! It has been a whirlwind of a last few weeks.

Joe and I have been dealing with the left overs of the snot fest the kids left behind two weeks ago, human bodies are amazing – fighting a bug and trying to sort out what’s COVID or not, I obviosuly didn’t want to infect my student, so I’ve been staying home. I started taking some super charged vitamins before I got the cold, so my body has done a great job of keeping it from sinking in, but it’s odd because I still have a cold and still feel worn down, but it hasn’t grabbed ahold of me so tight that I can really pin point where it’s doing it’s damage.

Each day I’ve been home, I’ve managed to spend a good deal of time in the garden. I’ve managed to get it 95% installed. Let’s see if I can rattle off what’s in there, and come up with a total number of seedlings.

These numbers are an estimate…in the main annual bed

70 Stock, 70 Snap Dragons, 25 Ranunuclus, 10 Honey Wort, 10 Sweet Annie, 10 Slavia Blue Monday Sage, 70 Marigold Beast, 25 White Marigolds, 10 Star Flower, 25 Calendula (that look horrible), Amaranths: 12 Hot Biscuts, 12 Coral Fountain, 12 Red Spike, 12 Golden Giants, 12 Burgandy, 100 Strawflower, 70 Aster, Grasses: 12 Frosted Explosion, 12 Mexican Feather Grass, 6 Artichokes, 70 Zinnia, 45 Cosmos, 6 Blue Flax, 25 Dahlia, 10 White Star Fever Few, 10 Golden Balls, 6 Green Magic Fever Few, 30 Statice, 2 Baby’s Breath, 18 Dragon Heads, 2 purple majestey, 4 hibiscus bean, 50 glads, 70 Lisianths….this is only about 925 so far….according to Joe’s calculations there is more out there….so either I go out and do a hand count, or just guess…we shall see! It would be nice to know, and since I do not have the cloth down, it should be easy enough to do a count.

Those numbers do not include my surprise Dahlia bed that has at least 100 dahlia’s, then there is the sunflower patch that has 50 sunflowers coming up so far, and of course the perennial bed.

The main bed is full, I’m out of room-well, I do have room in the back, but we are saving that for pumpkins for the grandkids.

I do have a bit of the sunflower patch left, so I think I’m going to take my extra Marigolds, Glads and Cosmos and make something that looks pretty. Everything else is functional, I was inspired to try something “pretty” when I seen a picture of my sister-in-laws patch from last year (or was it the year prior?). In any case, I thought I would try something a bit different, but I need a bit of help from my irrigation guy, so he’s going to make sure we have enough irrigation to pull it off.

I did manage a bouquet that’s almost 100% mine, the cute little Daisy’s are from a few plants I picked up at a nursary in Ferndale. I went over there to see if they had Snap Dragons again this year, but they do not. I found out that they will not be returning next year, but a different outfit bought them up. Sounds like a local family that has background in nurserys bought the place, they will be adding a little coffee stand and what-not and specialize more in the odd to find things. The person who had it these last two years was heavy on the usual basket stuffers & tomatoes with a few usual annuals here and there – Zinnias and Cosmos were big there last year. They have quiet the set up – a bit too much for me & my current full time job working at the school! It certainly would have been interesting! No room to plant outside, just the seed starting and selling part.

As usual there’s been a lot of soul searching…..what do I want to do next year, and all that stuff….but….still no clear answer. I have no idea what my job is going to be like next year, but I’m sure that I will still want to have a job at the school, so I should probably figure out how to keep that and focus on that for now – ie – pass my Braille test to keep my certification to keep said job. So, that needs to be a focus for next week.

We have a ton of things to do today, we shall see which of them gets done.

• Weed and sort out the side kitchen garden, make room for some of the perennials that I bought – echinacea, rudbeckia, campanula, holly hock, dianthus, and whatever else is in that flat!! I’m afraid that they are not all going to look good together because some are yellow and some are pink, but I’m 99% sure that they bloom at different times, so I think I will be okay.
• Finish putting in irrigation in the main bed
• Irrigation in the sunflower patch – planting out rest of glads, sunflowers, cosmos and marigolds
• Plant dappled Willow
• Plant two boxwood shrubs
• Plow/till behind barn for another addition to the perrienal garden – where I will plant more perrenial stuff like another hydrangea, shade plants like jacobs ladder, columbine and anything else in that flat….

With so much to be done, you would think I would be jumping out of bed to get all of it done, but it’s rather cozy in bed….we still need to have some breakfast too…so I guess I should get a move on!

Update on the vist with Hopi – the old German Shepard just couldn’t find the stamina to take care of the deed with our Annie girl. We reached out to the lady who we got Annie from, she seems to think we can reach out to some people in Baker Lake next time Annie is in season and maybe try that route. Maybe I will have my things gathered about me enough to be orgainzed and take care of that sooner than later. Her next heat will be around November, putting her due for puppies around January, making their departure from our house around March….maybe focus on a batch of puppies instead of a batch of seeds next year?

My niece said I needed to try to go smaller next year….I just don’t know how to do that! I had a lady reach out to me to ask if she could sell her statice she bought from me – she had three left – why is she selling it, she only bought 5 from me? Why not just plant it, it’s only three plants…?!! They aren’t that big?! Maybe I do have a problem?

I didn’t get to see Lily-Bean for Mother’s Day….I haven’t seen much of her mom either, she’s gone back to work in an office doing book keeping where she can take the baby, so by the time her day is over, she is tired. I’m hoping that I will be able to watch the baby for her in June & July a few times. I just might have to get my vaccination after all! I’m sure our upcoming camping trip will do us all a great deal of good! It will be nice to get caught up with everyone, do some fishing, hiking and exploring! I haven’t been camping with my kids in forever, and have never tried it with the grand kids, we have a feeling they will be in our camper more than mom & dad’s but we are good with that! It will be an adventure!

I’m looking forward to walking away from the garden for a bit – there’s a certain level of relife when the garden is finally in – there’s a certain level of calm I feel, I can walk away and let it do it’s job. It’s supposed to cool down next week and rain a bit – perfect timing frankly!

Anyhow, off I go to see what we can get done today and tomorrow. Have a great weekend my friends. Thank you for stopping in! Until next time – hugs to you!