Second Sock Progress

I AM making progress on my 2nd sock. I keep knitting until I hit 7 inches, and then I can turn heal number two. I am happy to have been working through these socks - but I admit I am already dreaming of my next socks. I dream of skinny fingering weight yarn in CRAZY colors and afterthought heals. I dream of Magic loop and toe up two at a time on two circular needles. **sigh** I think my summer of working on WIPs may fall to the superior force that is sock knitting.

Now that winter is over, I find myself so busy I can hardly think. I have gardens on my brain and grilled food in my tummy. Summer is so brief - that we really try and suck up every bit we can around here. I have been grilling and gardening and even got the first lawn mow of the year under my belt. (And had a massive allergy attack from all the mold and dust and pollen I kicked up - THAT was fun - NOT!)

Slowly slowly I am getting my gardens cleaned up and redone. Here is a photo "Before and After" shot of the Bird Bed.

I have several bird loving perennials in this bed and then I edged it with Snap dragons and Zinnia. Can not wait for the flowers to POP! Also on this bed (not pictured) is my new Hummingbird Feeder. I hung it out last weekend and already have had many customers at it. There is nothing like watching a hummingbird land and drink nectar.

For the Birds

I had a little garden bed on the side of the cucumber hut that housed rhubarb and chives. Since Tom is sugar-free and I am on a perpetual diet - it didn't seem to make sense to have a pile o' rhubarb hanging out in the yard. And as for the chives? We never really ate them. I think once in like four years we cut some and put them on shrimp we grilled the piss out of. But mostly they just got huge, flowered, fell over and then I would trim them. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

So I yanked them all out and started over. Ran to Linder's and after much research found a bunch of dog-friendly plants that attracted birds, butterflies and Hummingbirds.

Bam! I have awesome garden! I think I did all the planting at the start of June. (We had a really long cold spring this year.) A few weeks later we got a swing arm and a Hummingbird feeder and put that up. We used a length of fishing line to hang the feeder to help keep some of the bugs/ants out of the feeder. (This last week when I changed it there were a shit-ton of big black ants in it. Yuck. BUT the Hummingbirds have found my feeder and I am really enjoying watching them flit in and out of my garden. They feed at the feeder and then jump onto the rungs of the cucumber hut and have a rest. My next Hummingbird feeder will be this one but with posts for the Hummers to rest on while they feed. Otherwise this feeder has been great. I am following the 1 part sugar to 4 parts water recipe that came with the feeder. My system is pretty smooth. I take my glass 6 cup (or is it 8 cups?) measuring glass and fill two cups of HOT water. Then I take a half cup of plain white sugar and stir it in. Then I nuke it for about 1 minute and stir until it dissolves. (It does not have to boil.) Then I fill the feeder. It's just the right amount - doesn't fill it to the top - but I clean it out about every week to two weeks so it never gets empty.

The birds and butterflies have been happy as can be here too. The birds love the bath and hang out all over the cucumber hut. We have seen lots of Butterfly, bee and moth activity as well. I am really happy I changed this bed out.