mysmallurbanhomestead

  The blackberries survived the winter and after being purple they are now green again.  I am waiting on the blooms to come and see if the borage I planted by them will come up and attract the bees  to help pollinate them.  I am making a small strawberry bed nearby and hope to have pictures of it on the next blog. Speaking of attracting bees, I planted at the end of last summer not knowing if it was the pot with bee balm seeds growing or cone flower seeds growing.  Now that they are back and growing bigger I believe this is bee balm and I'll have to start over with the cone flowers. This is around the project I started last year.  The rain garden is still bare but I did put some irises and daylilys around it.  The irises are white bearded and Siberian purple ones.  During the winter I planted some blue vervaine but I am still waiting to see if it comes up.  The roots of this plant will soak up rainwater in an area that it would normally pool....

 If anyone in the house has a mood for cold days it's Daphne.  After going out to do her business and eating some kibble she immediately hops up on the couch on some blankets and lays by the remote as if to say " Please stay home and watch tv with me".  After realizing I am getting around for work she curls up, goes to sleep, and snores while I drink my morning coffee. Just the oppsite is Duke, who wakes me up between 3 and 4 am whining to go outside.  He'd like to stay out there in the freezing cold and play catch and retreive the ball, chase cats,  pee everywhere etc.  After realizing he is being led back to the house and into his kennel he eats then stares at me to see if he can go back outside.  Yes his food is on the floor because over the summer he seemed to be apalled it was in a dish and refused to eat it.  His floor is coming apart so soon I'll have to put some sort of bedding in there and feed and water him outside the kennel. Doing chor...

  Autumn has finally arrived at casa Martinez and the  leaves have fallen from some of the trees.  I've raked some up around the blackberry vines to mulch over for the winter.  I'm hoping for a first berry harvest come spring.  There's not much left of the garden and the drough killed most of the grass and ground cover so there's a lot of  bare dirt on the property right now. Here's the ever elsusive surprise I keep working on and it remains bare for now since the seeds for it need to stratify over the winter to soften the shell so they can spring up in summer.  I can't wait to show all the pictures I have for this and  the ones I'll take when the flowers come up in this..  I may also rock around the whole thing for birds and other small creatures to sit among in the thickness of the flowers later. The only thing still being productive is the hot pepper plants that are huge.  They are still blooming and putting on peppers.  I have r...

 These are just some pictures of things that make me think of times gone by and give a home that country feel.  To start the collection are two items made by my grandmother Violet that are made of  my grandfather's old shirts. who has not seen one of these or  a rabbit or something similar sitting somewhere around the family home?  Right now this guy is in my bedroom but maybe when I rearrange things he'll be on a bench in the front room entrance.   Next it this...cute little pants made from an ol shirt hanging on my kitchen wall.  I hope to attain more things to give my home that country fill and I think the kitchen is the easiest rooms to find things.  Time to check some of those flea markets around here.  I'd love more of these that lend a more antique style to a room plus you can insert little tea candles so if the power goes  out there is some old fashioned candle flame lighting.  Again these items can be found at garage s...

 There is nothing more beautiful than stepping outside as the sun rises over the fields and trees.  Even though I live in town all I have to do is walk a few blocks to see this view.  If I can't have a farmhouse in the country  then I'll settle for this. This  is just down a little bit from the photo above.  No animals today but sometimes there are some young deer that hang out here and a lone coyote I saw a fiew weeks back.  Also I have spotted several hawks, some foxes, and a few owls down through here.  I haven't seen any signs or tracks of big cats here but they might be hiding where I can't see or  walk to. These are some  flower shots I took while walking around.  Just some mixed things in first photo and the 2nd are daylilies a favorite of mine.  I remember my grandma had a pbig circle of these in her lawn when I was a girl.  I plan to implement these into my wildflower backyard garden. This guy and some of his farm...

  Between many waterings and a little rain the corn and green beans are growing fast but have yet to produce anything.   I am hoping to have a harvest of both before fall hits but we shall see what happens. The coneflowers have bloomed and attracted some pollinators today this butterfly was just happy walking around on it while I zoomed in to  snap a pic of it.  I can't wait to see if  it attracts birds in the fall and collect some seed heads to pass on. This pear tree is loaded and the picture is  zoomed up close since I was trying to capture a shot of a small bee that was just hovering around the pears.  I plan to make pearbutter out of these come fall when they are riper and bigger.   Speaking of bees, the catnip has flowered and the cats have let it be but this fellow was busy flying around it and I assume gatheering nectar.  Folks if you want bees plant some stuff other than haviang the boring square green patch of grass we cal...