A Second Look--June 13, 3012

This week during a Second Look, I investigated the milkweed plants in one of my beds. I have a love/hate relationship with milkweed. Some years I pull it out because it is growing in the middle of everything else and spreading. Other years, I leave it because I want to have more monarch butterflies around. This year I have left it alone. The main goal of my investigation was to find monarch eggs. I think I found them, but it's hard to tell since they are inconspicuous white dots under the leaves. However, I definitely found insect activity of various kinds.

I also discovered a sparrow's nest with eggs in the dogwood tree in front of our garage. I got a picture of it but I'm not sure that that was the smartest thing to do. I had to stand on the top of a ladder and lean to get it, but anything for a Second Look, right?

Here's what I saw this week.

Milkweed among the day lilies

Bumble bee on milkweed bloom

Spider among milkweed leaves

Milkweed bug eggs.

Balloon flower bud

Coreopsis-Moonbeam

Marigold

Begonia

House sparrow nest with eggs.

Ponderings from Theodore--the Early Years

Theodore always had an answer for everything.

"Theodore, leave Wally alone and stop pestering him."

"Mama, there's a reason that I am bothering him so much."

"Oh, and why is that?"

"I'm trying to make him lose his temper. After he loses it, he won't have it anymore and we won't have any more problems."

Arts and Crafts Fair

Today Ward and I went to an outdoor arts and crafts fair--the kind where the artists demonstrate their crafts while mountain music plays in the background. Even though I hadn't thought about it for a while, I had wanted to go to this fair since a last minute complication canceled our visit last year. I realized this when I saw it advertised recently. What I didn't know was that I also had another thing in mind when we went. Something that had also been in the back of my mind for a long time.

Ward and I arrived with no particular agenda in mind. We strolled among the tents admiring the crafts and occasionally struck up a conversation with an artist. Ward in particular looked at the woodworking techniques and I admired the beading and knitting. We both hurried past the odoriferous potpourri booths and were amazed at the chainsaw carving. As the morning went on, we were distracted by our hunger and added ourselves to the long line at the barbeque concession.

After some tasty chicken and lemonade, we found ourselves rejuvenated and started to look at the crafts again. One of the first booths we found was a leather worker who specialized in handbags. He was familiar to me as I had purchased one of his small bags many years ago which I still use every day--quality stuff. I found that he had added a new size to his collection, and told Ward that is what I wanted for my birthday. And that's what we bought.

When our purchase was complete, I was tired of the arts and crafts, and they didn't appear that interesting anymore. I was done with the fair and ready to go home. Was it a coincidence that I felt that way right after our purchase? I don't know.  However, maybe that purse was what I had been looking for all along. I remembered that I had seen it online a while back and thought I would like it. However, I didn't remember that until we were in the car on our way home. Or did I really remember it before? The subconscious mind works in mysterious ways.

A Day at the Fair

Crafts

Craftsmen

People

Food

Food Waste Friday--June 8, 2012

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. 

Here it goes for this week.

We had no waste this week. Yea!

However, my husband said something that gave me food for thought.

Store brand and name brand crackers

Here's the long version of the story.

My parents save all of the crackers they are served with their soup and salads when they eat out. However, they rarely eat them when they get home. They just save them up. Therefore when we visit, we take their stash home with us. So every few months or so, we are eating up their leftover crackers. This happened recently. I made soup and asked Ward if he wanted a little pack of crackers to go with it. He said, "Sure, that's the only time I'm going to get name brand crackers." He said it playfully, but it made me think.

• I didn't know that the brand made a difference to him. Had he told me and I didn't pay attention?
• Is my family so tuned into our thriftiness that they don't even think there are options?
• When we can afford it, why are we eating an inferior product instead of a better one?
• Sometimes saving money is a game to me, but do I go overboard?

Do you think that sometimes you get carried away with your thriftiness?

A Second Look--June 6, 2012

Last weekend, Ward and I toured gardens at six private residences in a nearby city. The gardens were in  mature neighborhoods with lots of trees and they were on both small and large lots. Some had been designed by professional designers with award winning results. Others were done entirely by the homeowners over the years. However, they all had several things in common.

1. All used a variety of colors and textures with the greenery being the most important element. The flowers were just accents to this backdrop.
2. All used a variety of heights in each bed with the taller ones to the back and the shorter ones to the front.
3. Most filled the space they had. There was very little empty space in the beds.
4. We saw the same plants over and over again--hosta, hydrangea, astilbe, azaleas, hellebore, ginger, and ornamental grasses to name a few.

Even though we don't have the money or time to create the gardens we saw, I found that we are already using some of these basic principals and plants. Also, we got ideas to incorporate into our yard.

Here's this week's Second Look--a compare and contrast between the gardens from our tour and our yard.

Their bed of  hosta, azalea, astilbe, and rhododendron.

Our bed of astilbe, spirea, and spruce.

We have many day lilies.

They used many day lilies (as seen on the left of this picture).

They use Japanese painted fern and hosta together.

I use Japanese painted fern and hosta together.

They used nettle with ginger.

I use nettle with lady's mantle.

They used hedges of hypericum.

I want hedges of hypericum.

They used whimsical garden art.

I'm not sure if I want whimsical garden art.

BTW--Formatting with Blogger is driving me crazy. Things are not exactly spaced as I want in this post, but I had to quit before I screamed. Did I mention that formatting with Blogger is often frustrating?