More Than Just "The Momma"

Squirrel Baby takes up a lot of time....time I happily give....but he's not all that keeps me busy. And busy I have been. I thought I'd give you a little peek in to my life.

As most of you know, I'm a working photographer with my own business. In the past two years I've transitioned to mostly commercial photography, and this keeps me busy. I'm the photographer for United Bank here in Georgia, and one of their projects is an annual magazine. In addition to handling the photography, I was asked to write one of the features for this year's magazine. Click on the link below, and you can see my story beginning on page 14.

Our Story

I decided early this year that I wanted to try my hand at gardening. Knowing that I needed to keep it on a small scale, I turned to bucket gardening. This is what I've got going on. (Side note: I started my gardening project before I found Little Monster & started caring for him. I had big plans to research & learn all about the things I was planting, but that's been put on the back burner. This year is mostly an experiment now.)

Celery that I hope to use in my chicken soup...

Potatoes...

A mixture of herbs: basil, dill, chives, and onion

I've also got a tomato plant, a couple pepper plants, cucumbers, garlic (that's dying), brussel sprouts (that will be pulled up to make room for something else because they've been ravaged), and corn (it's a variety specifically for container gardening.)

I also have a strawberry plant in a pot on the patio table; it yielded several strawberries that Jamie & Kevin said were delicious. And I planted a blueberry bush out front...

Jamie put up a fence along our property line in the front yard, and I planted several varieties of beans along with vegetable squash, spaghetti squash, and watermelon.

Everything except the tomato and peppers were planted from seeds, so I'm thrilled to see things growing.

Spring meant it was time to bring all my succulents out of the greenhouse and set up my garden area out front. That is a multi-day project, one on which I'm still working. The fountains and the rain barrel haven't been set up yet, but the flowers are out.

Even the air plants have been moved outside...

Let me tell you about this plant. Last spring, while at the Home Depot, I saw something like this and loved it. Price tag: $119. Nope nope nope. I had several of the same plant--pothos--in hanging baskets, and they were doing very poorly. I bought a pot and a board and came home & took every plant out of its basket. I put them all together and used velcro garden strips to train the plants to go up the board. I hoped in a couple years I would have something that looked close to what I saw at Home Depot. Well, the pothos LOVED the change from the hanging baskets and just grew like gang busters. I just brought the pot outside for the season, and it needs some tidying up, but I'm so pleased with how well it's doing.

My lavender is just about to bloom...

And my rosemary....well, I'm hoping it will come around. It's looking rather puny.

My Gerber daisy bloomed all winter in the greenhouse, and now that it's outside, I guess it's gonna keep on blooming.

And last year, I filled a half-whiskey barrel with wildflower seeds. It re-seeded itself this year and is already putting on a show.

I also brought what I call my Florida plants out of the greenhouse (called Florida plants because my friends in Florida, Bonnie & Phil, gave them to me) and bought and potted some new annuals. I'm hoping the color will attract my little hummingbird friends.

At the end of the house, Jamie hung for me the window pieces from my friend, Linda, in Mexico Beach. Such a nice addition of color there.

In other news, I took a sewing class and made a bag. Okay, I'm definitely #NotASeamstress and the teacher--my friend, Harold--gets tons of credit for his patience with such a grumpy sewing student. But I made a bag. And the frogs glow in the dark.

Realizing I don't cook enough to use up the herbs I'm growing in my bucket garden and not wanting to be wasteful, I decided to try my hand at dehydrating. I know nothing about it and didn't want to spend big dollars on a dehydrator when I wasn't sure it'd be something I'd enjoy. So I went to my favorite closeout store and found a $20 model. My friend, Rachel, gave me a bunch of oregano out of her garden, and last night I gave it a whirl.

In addition to the oregano, I cut some of the dill and the chives and put them in the machine too. I'll let you know about the taste when I use some of them.

Life's busy, but not so busy that we're gonna miss a VERY IMPORTANT DAY on Sunday, May 8th. No, I'm not talking about Mother's Day....something more important. Roscoe's birthday. The best dog in the world is turning 5! How did that happen??

We'll be taking this good boy to the pet store to pick out a toy and a treat. Happy Birthday, sweet boy!

Whew! I'm tired!