Noah’s Birthday

Baby pictures of Noah:

2 Months old:

4 months old:

This past Saturday Noah turned 10 years old! Since it was Saturday and his trainer has a class on that day, I drove over at the end of the class and took some Apple Hill donuts over. I am very appreciative of all the work she’s done with Noah, and also a couple of her helpers that worked with Noah. Of course, I forgot to take pictures over there. So I took a picture when I got home. Noah had just had a bath, but the picture doesn’t look so much like that.

When I took Noah to a special vet to be neutered, I asked how long these dogs lived. She told me that many times they escaped and were hit by cars or other terrible things happened to them. Noah has surprisingly never tried to escape from my yard. He has occasionally run off when I leave the gate open, but he always came back. Noah is slowing down. He still takes walks with me, but he usually walks behind me. Of course he never picks up sticks on our walks. But he does still enjoy barking. And he does enjoy sleeping most of the day!

A little rant: this bit with PGE turning the power on and off is getting VERY old. I am very glad that I got a generator this year, and that my neighbor Tom has been very helpful in giving me advice on how to keep it going. I wish it would rain a BIG rainstorm.

And here’s a few pictures of my garden. Its also very hard to water the garden when they turn the electricity off (I have a well, so I run out of water frequently.) Today at the gym, one lady told me they filled their bathtub up so they could flush their toilet–brilliant!!

Carnation:

Rose:

Petunias:

And one more new thing. I am going to have my contractor put the fence all the way around my whole yard. Please don’t ask me how much it is going to cost! I have a large yard, and I was even shocked at the cost!

Oh, one more new thing. A friend gave me her mom’s Keurig. I never thought I’d want one, but I do love it. The only thing is that I think it might be old and it gets clogged up frequently. So Keurig sent me a 25% off coupon, and I bought a smaller Keurig. Then I researched what kind of water to put in it, and they said Distilled water. Walmart has a lot of water on sale, so I bought 10 gallons of distilled water!

My Generator…and a Little Garden Update

So, after living up here for 32 years, I finally decided to get a generator. I got the same model as my neighbors, and Tom helped me TREMENDOUSLY with setting the generator up. I was supposed to run it for about an hour once a month. But it has a key fob that turns it on and off automatically, and I forgot to turn the start buttons to OFF, and the battery went dead. Aaargh. So, after trying to order new batteries (wrong size) Tom took my old battery to his house and powered it up! Just in time because PGE decided to take our power out all day yesterday and today. I have one light, the computer and wifi machine plugged in, and the refrigerator. And, in the morning, I bring out my coffee machine and plug it in and make myself a cup of coffee 🙂

So, here is an abbreviated garden report. The salvia seem to love the cooler weather. Their color is so brilliant blue! You can also see the zinnias that I planted in front of them. They aren’t blooming as well as I thought, maybe because the weather is so cool.

One more pic of the salvia with my magenta geraniums in front of them.

One zinnia.

Okay. Have you guys ever heard of Giant Poison Ivy? All those red leaves are poison ivy. And this past summer, I actually got poison ivy on my arm just from a little shoot that was starting up. Anyway, it is starting to come into my yard. So I have a plan. In the middle of winter I am going to get disposable clothing from the thrift store, going to put a plastic bag over my head, and get good gloves from Walmart, and I am going to cut that sucker down, along with the little tree it is climbing. I have poison and a good sprayer all ready to go. After all is done, I will throw away everything that I was wearing and go take a shower.

Here you can see the base of it. It is a pretty good sized vine.

This abutilon is huge, and it didn’t bloom this year. So it is going! Hopefully I can dig it out myself.

Here is a part of the garden that I am very pleased with. It got shadier over here, so I planted heuchera and ferns. They are all doing so well.

All the maples are doing well, and all the trees. I got quite a few apples on my apple tree this year, maybe because I pruned it last winter. But mostly I am a little overwhelmed by the garden. It hurts my back to bend down and pick weeds, so I mostly don’t do that. I am having my tree guy come to prune the flowering cherry this fall. It is getting too tall! Anyway, that’s the report for now. Hopefully I’ll have some fall color to show you in a little while.

Just a Few Little Things to Show

This is the biggest news. Every since I’ve lived here, I had CATTLE gates. Yuck. So one day I asked my contractor if he would be able to build gates and a partial fence. I just loved this round gate that I found on the internet, and he also built a trellis in front of it so I can get some climbing roses and put them there. I want to get Queen Elizabeth roses, but the climbing ones are hard to find. Anyway, I love the fence so much that I am going to put the fence all the way around my yard eventually. Also, there is welded wire on the outside of the fence so Sophie can’t get out and skunks can’t get in! You can also see the little patio that I had built. Sadly, I haven’t used it much yet.

I hardly ever remember to take a picture of Noah right after he has his bath. Isn’t he a handsome dog. He’s going to be 10 years old in a couple of weeks!

This is just Chloe and Sophie trying to get me to feed them. They were barking at me, but I didn’t get that shot.

And my new baby chickens are just about grown up. I have four blue laced red wyandottes, 2 Black Astralorps, and 2 Barnvelders.

The babies are still afraid of most of the chickens, so I was surprised when I saw this picture of one of my Dominique chickens up there with the babies.

And that’s about all the news that’s fit to print.