A productive weekend!

Good morning everyone,

It is raining here, but it is a nice gentle rain that the garden will love. We had a lovely holiday weekend, but more about that in a bit. First off, today is mom's birthday. Happy birthday MOM! Also, I received a blog award from Lisa. Thank you Lisa. Sorry, I don't know how to get a picture of it on here. I tried. Some things I understand, and others, I just don't. LOL

As I said, we had a great weekend and got lots done. Kevin decided to buy me an MP3 player or iPod. I did lots of research. I decided not to get the iPod. It did not have a feature that was important to me and I thought it was too expensive. I'm not saying iPods aren't good, just that it wasn't for me. So we went down to Best Buy, Friday evening. I came back with a Sony Walkman 8 GB. I have already figured out how to use it and love this thing. Sorry about the blurry picture. I took several and this is the best of the bunch. LOL The only thing I do not like about it, is the earphones, on the right. Those things hurt and will not stay in my ears. So I bought another pair, on the left, that work great.

My dh offered to put all of my CD's on it, so I took him up on the offer. He has put over 300 songs on it, some of my pictures, a movie, and the complete King James Bible and I still have lots of space left. He asked me why I had so many CD's of Reba and Travis Tritt. Well, duh! Because they are great singers. LOL I have at least 5 of each of these wonderful artists. I told him I thought 8 GB was overkill, but he insisted I get that instead of the 4 GB. I have had Sony products in the past and always had good luck. I really wanted an MP3 player with an FM radio. This has it. It sounds fabulous. I had narrowed it down to this or a Sandisk Sansa Fuse. I went with this one because of the Sony name and I just liked the looks of this cute little red thing. LOL I can not believe how this tiny little device can hold so much stuff. Isn't technology great? (grin) So I know how to run everything on it, but never learned how to put stuff on it from the computer. If I need something added, I will just ask dh. (grin) My next project is to make a carrying case for it. I hope to do that today.

We worked outside most of the weekend. We mowed, weedeated, tilled, planted, weeded, watered, grilled and ate. LOL Kevin used the Troybilt to make a long hill for me to plant my vining crops in. I planted the sweet potato plants, then the rest in seeds. In this long hill, we have sweet potatoes, muskmelon, watermelon, cucumber, and zucchini. I ended up with about 18 sweet potatoes, 5 hills each of watermelon and muskmelon, 3 of cucumbers and about 10 feet of zucchini. (I plant them in this long hill, but with about 6 seeds grouped together spaced out about 8 feet apart. The zuchinni seed is about 8 inches apart along the row. The sweet potatoes are 1 foot apart in the hill. So they are all technically in the same hill, just spaced out along it.) So far the sweet potatoes are looking good. This gentle rain should bring everything right on up.

I also got my potatoes weeded and hilled up. I am so glad I got that done before this rain moved in. They will probably be blooming soon. You can't work close to the plant when or after they bloom or you risk tearing off the newly developing potatoes. I am keeping a close eye on them for those nasty potato bugs. So far, no signs of them. We didn't plant any potatoes last year, so I am hoping they all moved to another area.

I also got the onions weeded. I decided to work on the weeding an hour or 2 every morning. Otherwise the weeds get out of control. My back was actually thankful for the rain today. It can use a little break. LOL We used to plant 5-8 lbs of onion sets back when all the kids were home. Now we plant about a lb. It is too much work for me to keep up with the weeding for that much. The kids helped out alot. So we only have 2 rows plus the ends of the two rows of potatoes of onions. I hope weeding them will perk them up a little.

I also got the sweet corn, green beans and some flowers planted. I went back last night and hoed around my tomatoes, but didn't get any pictures of them. We lost about 10 of them, but still have 16, so should have enough for us. It hailed, rained hard, and the wind blew hard the whole week after we planted the tomatoes, so I am surprised we didn't lose more of them.

I noticed while I was out and about that my iris and peonies are blooming. I always considered the peony red, but I guess it is just a very dark pink. I have tried to get other colors to live, but so far, this is the only one to survive.

I have at least a 10 feet long patch of iris, but so far have only had 3 bloom. I think they are getting too crowded and the weeds are a pain to get out of them. So this fall, I think I will till another area up and move a bunch of them. Hopefully, then I will once again get those beautiful iris blooms. I have finished the quilting on the teapot quilt. I hope to get the binding done today. I am still working on the disappearing nine patch. I'm about 3/4 done with it.

We grilled out for the first time this season yesterday. We grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, brats, and ring bologna. So I have enough meat cooked for all this week and probably some of next. I also have some chili fixed for the hotdogs. I think I am going to need to freeze some of this. I had to turn the ac on Saturday. It got up to 92*. We can live with that temp, but why be uncomfortable when we have the ac? (grin)

Well, I need to get some things done around here. Tomorrow I hope to be able to show you the finished teapot quilt and some pictures I took of our baby chicks. Goodness, they have grown. Won't be long till they can mingle with the big chickens. Everyone have a good day. Thank you for visiting.