Happy New Years!

2017 was an interesting year. Saw accomplishments and failures... joys and happiness and sorrow and anger... Some significant life changes while life went on mostly as it does out here. A mixed bag of a year that I'm not happy or sad to see pass into yesteryear.


Growbox Hill saw an expansion of property this year, something we have been working on for a few years now. It's our dreams coming to fruition. This years big 2018 resolution is to take over the stable to work into gardening and harvest shed, and securing the immediate stableyard for the larger scale garden plot. Not sure what else comes yet now, some plans changed unexpectedly early this spring.
Lost mom and sis this year- that was unexpected. They are back in our home state now, tucked in for the winter. That was a bit of a dream shatter that I'm still reeling a bit from. Our boy moved out too, also fairly unexpected in the timing of it. Not quite as much of a shatter though, I always knew sooner or later he would figure stuff out and eventually move out. But all in all, quite the tailspin.
The gardens did well this year- but then it was kind of a take it easy on the growing in favor of getting beds in order kind of year. Glad I got that pretty much done, well worth it. A smaller resolution for 2018 is to try to remember not to grow so much, lol. I've already culled out about half my seedstock that I'm going to toss into the freezer to put on deep hold for a couple years while I get worked through the other half. The hopeful seed collection of yesteryears have now stabilized and hit the point of this rotation- a very good thing indeed, 2018 will mark Growbox Hills first seed vault year :)
Was bummed that I completely missed faire for the first time in over half my life. So many dear friends that I miss that I only get to see then. I'll need to get out that way once or twice in the coming year... Heh, need to unpack storage too in the coming year :)
Hurt myself good in July- the kind of hurt that as an adult you know is going to last a while. Been working on it- it's a slow going thing. 2018 resolution is don't make that shit worse, lol.
Gen-con was cool. Done it a couple times now so it was a bit old hat. I heard a rumor that it might be moving out of Indy in the future to somewhere bigger. Also heard they are contracted till at least 2021, so here's to going to more Gen-cons in the future.
My love's computers and printing have come together wonderfully, and I hope 2018 sees some sales starting to happen on the great gardening and surveillance tec he's been making over at KnowESys. The little ninja bots are adorable, and the harpoon a formidible and useful tool :) Ninja Smoke and Cyborgro
Got the opportunity to make a friend and get a sort of part time job this year. Went out to my favorite and only good local bead shop- that also happens to be a fave garden nursery, The Enchanted Bead  The lady that runs the place is great. This spring we struck up a conversation, and now I'm working the occasional day here and there for her through the year. This summers first annual trunk show was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to next years.
My love of Fortune's Turning has been creeping back. Over the year I've slowly gathered together materials on the cheap and started getting into mini making over the last couple months. A lot of learning and relearning techniques. Getting pretty good with the changeouts between the three more common scales. If I keep this up, I think there's potential that my etsy shop might reopen next year with a line of Fortunes Turning Minis. Maybe.
Today I've baked this years last loaf of bread- wheat, packed the last of this years leftovers into the freezer- spicy sausage and orzo ragout. The sun is starting to slant over the snow and it's time to get ready for our New Years Eve dinner.

I hope we all see each other through the year to come, and well into many years to come. Happy New Years!

More mini's- making stuff and scales

So I just made a post that had a ton of pics of stuff I've been making lately. I touched on a bit of rant about cost of things and scales... Because by george a lot of mini's can be expensive, and not right on the scale.
I have pretty much never paid full price for any of my village stuff. Michaels, Joanns, and Menards are usually the only regular stores that carry village stuff, though sometimes I've found things at the local Rite Aid and Walgreens, lol. But I wait till the stuff goes on sale, or I got the good coupons- or best is when I got both going on :) I've gotten a lot of stuff from thrift and resale shops too, a lot of good stuff. And sometimes in the process, I've had to revamp stuff, or fix broken stuff... and that's led into making stuff. Because eff that if I'm gonna pay 5 bucks on sale for something I can make myself for way less. And well, I like making stuff like this. Sooner or later maybe someone will want to buy stuff I make :)

So then scale- I have a bit of range of scale in Fortunes Turning. With American villages in general like Lemax and Dept 56, the buildings are actually small for the figures and details that are sold with the buildings. The buildings are around 1:48-1:64 scale range, people are 1:24-1:32 scale range. While figures tend to be about 2 1/2" tall, doorways tend to be about 2" tall. So there's already some fudging around with the scale there village collectors have to deal with.
When doing the details... 1:6 scale is HUGE- this is often called re-ment size or Barbie Doll size. 1:12 scale is tooo big, that's the scale for regular dollhouses. 1:16 scale is popular among tabletop players- but like all gaming stuff, stupidly expensive for pretty much anything. 1:24 scale can be harder to find and much more expensive than 1:12 stuff is.

What does all of this mean then? Some photos...

I had ordered a couple cheap sets of dishes off Ebay- white plastic, 33 pieces for 99 cents, some gold kettles and clear glasses were similar deals. I wanted to get a feel for what all the range in size stuff was when figuring all this out. I was gifted with a lovely brass set from my sis and mom, bought one of the standard silver mini sets from Michaels, and use various jewelry findings here. Keep in mind all this is laid out on about a 5 inch wide space, with items ranging from Barbie doll size down to the size of the standard figure and table from my village. Sister Mercy is my regular model.

Same setup, different angle. The multi compartment round dish and gold kettle are the regular Barbie size pieces, meant to be a regular big kettle and serving tray. They will end up be parts of street scenes, something like giant soup kettle and dim sum dish, or something.. The rest of the white dishes give scale, note the stacked bowls- the biggest ones are regular Barbie bowls, while the tiny brass one is a regular bowl on the scale I use. The glasses range from the giant beer glass down to little jewelry findings serving as small mugs. In the foreground is a variety of jewelry findings and one of the 1" cutting boards I make.

Utensils. On the left- the gold ones are part of the kettle set, the spoons are Barbie spoons, and the other two are a couple of little jewelry charms. On the right are things, I've made- the spoons are actually little ball bails. I can get 100 spoons for the price of the 4 on the left, heh. On the right are knives I've done with foil and fimo, and pounded wire tiny knives. On the bottom are pounded wire handles- not all dishes need the bottom of the utensil showing, just the handle sticking out. Easy and cheap to make.

A bit more simple now. On the top of the table are the stack of dishes and their right scale spoons. On the seat is an empty finding and two finished platters. On the bottom is an empty board, and two finished boards. If you notice, the white dish on the top is Barbie sized, and the platter on the bottom is only a little larger and holds a whole scene.

A closeup for scale. Same sized bread pieces. On the left is the Barbie sized plate and spoon, in the middle is dollhouse scale, and on the right is Sister Mercy's dish scale. The bread is cut on half to fit on her plate nicely.

Pulling it together...

Standard street scene. You don't really notice how much the people outscale the buildings.

And the difference between night and day-

A random food pic- this shows the scale of the regular food I can get online, vs the scale I actually need...

On the top, the carrot and potatoes on the left are standard, the ones on the right the ones I've made. On the bottom, the standard egg on the right, and my egg on the left.

Time for some mini's

Been a while since I've posted anything. House has been quiet, not much going on. Winter is well and truly here. Amusingly enough, I still have yellow mums blooming in the solarium.

For weeks now most of my time has been in creating minis. My arm still isn't up to snuff for some of the more regular winter labors, but it's working well enough for this. And I've been feeling the creativity flowing, so I work it when I got it, right? 

Been collecting and watching tutorials, pinning a crapton of stuff on pintrest for a while now. Ebay and Etsy have been great sources of inspirations. But whew boy a lot of the little foods and detailings like that are frigging expensive!!! I mean seriously, I pay about 20 bucks max for large buildings that I can't make myself, and someone wants 15 bucks for a couple little pies? Nuh-uh. Some of these miniatures are absolutely breathtaking, but I just can't justify shelling out like that when I can make it myself. And I also have a lot of difficulty finding these on a small enough scale- most stops at 1:12, and I need more like 1:16. So a small dish in 1:12 is a serving dish to my scale. 

Anywho, been making stuff :) I'm going to post a couple posts about this, since they are going to be photo-heavy.

So some of my completed projects first....

 Cheeseboard, this is on a 1inch square board. A variety of cheeses, meats, and olives.

 Another pic of the same board, from a different angle to show all the goodies on it.

 Another 1 inch board, this one has roast beef and swiss with muststard sandwiches being made on it.

 A tasty platter of fish.

 A large bowl of salad with cold meats and eggs, and a Hawaiian bowl of meat and such.

 Fresh sliced lemons.

 A couple griddles of breakfast and lunch offerings with a bowl of broccoli crowns.

 Some various stew bowls and one pot eats.

 A variety of tortes.

 The new bakery stand full of sweets with some savory and "unfinished" pies in the foreground.

 A closeup of the bottom row. Boards of little sweets and toasts with fresh fruits and jellies. Pies of various sorts.

 Top of the bakery stand, with several more pies.

 The new sausage display. I has already had most of the meats made from a few months back, and needed a display for them all :)

 A closeup of a couple of the roasts, buckets of olives, and bins of fish and sausage.

 A spice stall, with hanging scale and full of various real spices.

The other end of the stall. 

 

Detail of stall.

 Middle of the stall.

Counter end of the stall.

Apparently I didn't take pics of the fabric rolls and new cutting table I made. Ah well, that can be for another time. So these are some of the mini's I've been making to go into Fortunes Turning.

I'm going to make another post now, which gets into things like the scales of things, and the materials I've been using to make this stuff.

And the color changing has begun.. and done- almost

Well, it's been a bit since I've posted.
Over the last couple weeks I've gotten all the garden stuff tucked up. The beds are done for everything but some final leaf raking over a few spots. The outdoor pots are in their spots and under leaves.. the last of the Beer Garden radishes and nasturtium seeds have been picked. 
 Been getting the house winterized, capping off windows and such. The weather has been nicely in the 40's and up till now- we got our first real frost this morning, and 30's with snow predicted for tomorrow. Yuck, snow.
We were told we are able to keep the freezer and dryer action till spring, which is really nice. I've picked up some stuff for the winter. The cleanout frenzy was kind of nice though, really made me rotate through stuff and such. Picked up a turkey today- 68 cents a pound at Hardings. Bet Meijer will have them for cheaper soon, but I wanted to just get the bird and not wait and see what Meijer might have.

Reworked the village. Started tearing down what I had up of Halloween pretty much the day after Halloween... I just wasn't into it and satisfied with the spooky this year. meh. I have enjoyed setting up a more autumnal village though, almost done with it cept for some finishing touches. Living room is nice and cleaned up, all the stuff put away.

Lovely Autumn

10/9: Got a bit done in the garden today. Cut down the Pink Bumblebee tomato- got about 2 quarts of red and green tomatoes. At the very end of of the process, I found a tomato hornworm on the very top of the plant- and it was heavily infested with braconid wasp cocoons! This is a very good thing, because those little wasps love to kill tomato hornworms. The adults also love to eat dill flowers, which I have in pots right next to that tomato plant. This means my companion planting for pest management works there with zero pesticides needed. When I went and cleaned out the raised bed of Freds I looked to see if there were any more I could feed to the wasps, but no such luck, lol. Got the Freds cages torn down and plants cut back- I still need to go and pull the root masses out of both beds.
Also cleaned out the big lasagna bed of it's brassicas and weeds. It still needs a fork cleaning before I cap it with clear plastic to start solarizing- but that's ok, found out today I was out of clear plastic, heh. So now all three of those beds are cleaned up, the first one completely set, the second one almost set- still need to put in bulbs. Big bed got it's basic cleanup done, needs a good dig and capping.
The kennel beds still need some cleanup, but not much. Right now I'm happy to let the nasturtiums and marigolds grow out, and let those Beer Garden radish seedlings do what they want to do for now. The straw bed capping the area needs some weeding attention though.
The greenhouse is pretty much empty and awaiting some fresh setting up. I need to do a little tending to the walls and pin the top flaps down nicely. Right now plans are to just leave the top open- I can't roof it by myself, and honestly not sure how I want to roof it again at the moment. I also have a lot different overwintering into spring plans this year than I did last year.
Still need to clean up the stair garden. I think it's going to see some different use too. The shadier side is going to start getting planted in with some of those shade loving plants that I've let sit for too long honestly. Those will soften out the mowing edge there. I need to get one of the heavy RR ties down by the pole barn up to the garden to cap off the sidewalk side along the garage.
The cooler I used to trap and drown all those squash bugs showed no signs of life, so I dumped the cooler out. I hope I got them all.
Got the southern edge of the solarium beds cleaned out today- all the grape hyacinth patches are now clear and open, and a goodly outside border  is cleaned out of the grass too. I now have a full walking path again. I'm thinking of getting out the old hexagonal concrete pavers I made a while back, and drop them in as stepping stones in that walkway.  Probably would need to make more to make a full walk, but hey, I can get a start set in. I need to make some more pavers in general too.
Now it's time to be off to make some crispy chicken salads for dinner, then a town hall meeting tonight.

10/10: another round of clearing out the freezers. I happened to have 4 quart packs of ham stock, so that's now reducing down to another pint sized package of ham cubes. A couple random 2 packs of pitas leftover got made into some nice pita chips with a couple different seasonings. Those are now cooling and will get vacuum sealed into quart jars for snacking on. A half dozen various savory flavors bagels got sliced up and toasted dry in a 325 oven for about 25-30 minutes, and then into a couple more jars- those are gonna be used as soup croutons through the winter, yum. Since we still have a few stacks of large flour and small corn tortillas in the freezer, I think those might get baked into crisps too.
The peach pulp is still draining, so since the dehydrator wasn't being used for that- I did up a tray of the fresh ambrosia corn, 2 trays of regular corn, and a tray of peas out of the freezer.
Realized I still had those 2 quart bags of cherries in sweet juice that were canning fails last year, went into the freezer, and got lost. I thawed one of those out to try out a bit of an experiment. Since it was already in sweetened juice, I added in about 1/4 cup each of some cab and pinot, and a steeping ball with a cinnamon stick, couple slices dried lemon, a few hibiscus flowers, a few cloves, and a few slices of fresh ginger. I was out of dried clementines, so I figured the lemon/hibiscus would make that nice tang. That's burbling on high for now, then will get the steeping ball removed and turned down to low overnight to help reduce it all.. then tomorrow I'll do a spice check. Add in some spiced rum, maybe some of the peach juice that has drained off, and really reduce it down- I want to almost gel the stuff if I can. If the reduction works, that will make for some tiny tasty ice cubes- and those will get baked or used in drink goodies through the winter. We shall see how that goes, lol.
I've started tossing some stuff too- old somethings that didn't get labeled, and have enough freezer burn on them that I can't tell either.
I need to do a vacuum sealing of a handful of stuff soon- cubes of concentrated chicken stock, ham cubes, and a bulk of spring chive butter and garlic greens butter. The peach leather and cherry cubes will also need to get frozen. And now that I have got the seed stock sorted out and got the deep freeze pile done- that too needs to get sealed and tucked into the freezer. I need to repack and detail catalog the list to shrink out all the extra packaging, but I think I might have managed to keep within a quart or so space. Got a goodly round of dehydrated stuff in jars to do up too on the shelf.

A bit of Tippy and friends.. and gosh it's been a long time since one of these, right? This spring the McSwanums had their babies.. and amazingly enough, all of them survived to adulthood, including the ugly signet. There was one baby that stayed brown/grey so long after it's siblings had gotten their full white on and were on their flapping runs across the pond I had started to wonder if maybe a goose or heron or something managed to slip an egg into their nest.
Today I'm happy to say that that ugly signet has since then gotten it's full white, done all the strafing runs across the ponds and such.. and this afternoon is the first time I've seen the ponds clear of swans! I know the family is probably just in the next pond over and will come back so long as the weather is good.. but yay for junior.

With the cats.. over the last two years we have lost two of our bubbas to old age- Argent in 2015, and Pooks in 2016. Now the twins are hitting that senior mark and showing it, and I've been adjusting the cats diet for this. Tikki mostly don't care about food, she isn't finicky about dry food, and don't care much for wet food, and can be hit or miss with treats. Nova is my big boy, and will tuck up into pretty much anything I lay down. But Ocelot and Marbles are getting older, and need extra.
Since this spring, I've upgraded the dry food. I used to only use Purina indoors or Meijer brand in the 2 feeders. Now the office feeder has that since the cats still like to eat it. The kitchen feeder now has had Purina Beyond for a few rounds, and all the cats really like that. It's rare to catch a sale or coupon with this stuff, and it's a bit more than twice the price. Been giving out a can of wet food a day in the morning too. They all mostly like beef and poultry more, and can be hit or miss with seafood. But Purina Fiskies and One are their faves.

10/13: ohhhhh, Friday the 13th. Only pretty much not, lol. Today was a south shopping day, had a random handful of oddbits to pick up. Got a new HotShot water heater, ours was screaming to death. And after yesterdays dinner and scrubbing out the large deep 6/7 quart nonstick Calphalon pan.. I finally decided to make a dedicated effort to finding a replacement pan today. Ended up getting a 8 quart stainless steel Calphalon dutch oven. It was a bit pricey at 40 bucks, but it will last for ages since it's stainless, and the cheapest comparison at Target and Meijer was nonstick 5 quart at 40 bucks. It's about the same size and shape as the old one, but a bit deeper with straight sides, and two helper handles instead of one with a long handle. And it came with another 12" lid. I've already chucked the old pan along with the screaming hotshot into the garbage.
Hit Michaels- had a 25% off total coupon, a rarity around here for them. Wasn't much of interest, though the Lemax Christmas collection has one thing that's cool- Sugar Shack Maple Hut. No power, stand alone, pretty neat. I did get to pick up a couple packages of findings on clearance that will make for an excellent stack of pots and plates for mini-food.. I'm finally getting up enough of a collection of this stuff now to start really making stuff.
Hit JoAnns. Had a couple 40% off full price, plus a 25% off total purchase coupons. Got another pair of the 60" 3 pack clear plastic gift wrap for cheap. This is the clear plastic I use for my windows- I've covered this before but.. with the coupons the plastic ends up cheaper than regular window plastics, even when they are on sale- plus it's thicker, comes in rolls instead of trying to unfold compressed squares, works beautifully to fold out and tack into place so long as you understand how static electricity works. I have some 4 mil sheet plastic on hand too- time to start seriously capping off windows and such to prep for winter. And that roll will give me my clear plastic to start solarizing the big lasagna bed.

I'm still not feeling Halloween really. Just a couple weeks out, and Nightvale is still just in some basic setup- and I'm already thinking about tearing some of that out in favor of some more Autumnal theme. Main street is already pretty much spooky free. I think the Alley might be packed back up too. Just feeling slaggy this year.

10/16: Last couple days were dreary and wet- the rain promised late Friday night came in and kept coming in...
On Saturday my love advised me that the siphon somehow got left on suction out, and pretty much drained the big tank. But over the course of the weekend, the big tank was pretty much filled up again. Watering needs on the outdoor gardens are down, so now I need to be bringing water indoors while the weather is dry over the next couple days. Got most of our summer/winter wardrobe swapped out and cleaned up too... It's supposed to be spectacularly sunny, warm, and nice for the next couple days, so a lot of line drying will be going on.
I got around to tinking around a bit with the village... I decided to go ahead and just pack back the alley, and the Orphanage, and most of the backstreet. I got so much other going on right now I just ain't fussing, lol. But Main Street, Scarry's Amusement Haunt, and the Drive In are wired in and getting mostly set up. The lower level of the Amusement Haunt is slow- both because of inspiration of distributing maze, and because Sheriff Nova keeps insisting on raiding the maze, lol. But a lot of the living room is cleaned up now. It was rather an explosion for a while there.
 Today was fine and clear, and even warm in the sunny upper 50's. Did the final crisping off of the peach leather into dryness for peach powder- a few pounds dried down into a nice 8 oz jar. So I pulled off the 3 bags of Jen's Apple Pie Filling from the freezer and tossed them into the fridge to thaw out for trying out for dehydrating next. Why not? I still have a quart of cherries in liquid in the deep freeze too to do something with. I also tossed a bunch of stuff from the deep freeze into the garbage- some various things not really labeled and frosted and it was time anyway, lol. Along with that came a shelf clearing up- and realizing that we have about 6 tubs of ICBINB for mom and sis to pick up- we don't use as much as they do, and we have a full big tub in the fridge already. And a clear shelf on the bottom meant I could do some other cleanup... candles.
I got a lot of jar/crock/ect candles. And some cleanup is due. I got a couple batches of wax built up from previous cleanups, and a lot of glass to clean for anything..

So some greatgrans cleaning tricks..

For soot removal on glass. Take a cleaning cloth and lightly dress it with vegetable oil to quickly swipe away soot. Be sure to take a couple goodly swipes with a clean cloth after the oil and soot removal too to try to get as much out as you can. After that, repeat the same process with a lightly dressed rubbing alcohol cloth to really remove the oil and soot remaims.

Freeze your candle holders for cleaning. Those bits stuck to the bottom and so on. Freezethem and the wax shrinks and will crack apart easier.

10/18: gosh, this entry is getting pretty long, guess I better get my typing done and post this. We are into what is likely to be our last few days of warm and sunny weather- got a lot of linens on the line yesterday. I also got the raised beds dug out of the tomato roots and the roots into the compost, and a nice thick heap of leaves and pine needles for the compost pile- buried the raised beds under pine needles. I also got the little molly alliums planted into the center lasagna bed- just the pink and yellow mix and the white ones. I ended up not using the bag of yellow molly's because I didn't need to :) Got some of the porch furniture down to the pole barn, and some more stuff from the pole barn up to the house. A bit of tinkering on the workbench getting some stuff organized for making some minis finally. Sat down and really figured out how to set up the snow fence for this year- it ended up not happening last year. This winter we are planning on using the pole barn for parking since the other vehicles aren't there anymore- makes keeping the end of the driveway easier than clearing the whole darn thing every time it snows. I can deal with a few hundred feet of sidewalk down to the pole barn, lol. Makes me wonder why we didn't do that years ago before the pole barn had stuff in it.

Today I relaxed for a while this morning- as in some zen stretching stuff. I've lost touch with myself for a while now, with sickness and injury really throwing an extra wrench in there. I want to get back into meditating more, maybe pick up tai chi again. Then I hit the hall to take care of paperwork... then it was time to tackle another round of bulbs- this time the big alliums. I've been working on keeping the side section of the herb garden relatively weed free and buried under leaves for a while now.. and the trample pattern is emerging on that side for how walkway is going to shake out. So today I cleared out the leaves and as much weeds as I could. Popped in the butterfly bush into the middle with 3 lavenders along the walkway side. They are some of the big heldover ones that needed to get into the ground. Then somewhere around 100 various alliums around the whole area. Some from growing out last year- and I have a bunch of tiny baby bulbs to pot up to grow out from those. Purple Rain and Wild About Mixed, which give the large classic balls of purple and white. Christophii, a reddish large start type globe, and Drumstick, a tight budded egg shaped head. I was tempted to put in a few other things too, but figured that was probably plenty to fill in for now and if I got some spots open next year, then I'll fill then.
Still got the solarium bulbs to put in- all those grape muscari, lol. Got 100 of them in the packages. And after cleaning out the current border real well recently, I realized the muscari blocks from 2013 are still very much blocks, and need breaking up more than needing more. So I think instead of putting in more blocks I'm going to dig out the whole border edge and just set in all the muscari at once to re-distribute them nicely. Nice and plush. They will make that whole walkway edge very well filled in very quickly. Then it's time to tackle the space around the little maple tree- and that little maple tree is getting cut down soon while it's still little and not endangering the house yet. It's taken several years of mowing and walking around to really figure out where some of these borders are falling around the house, heh. On the other end of the solarium in the wee folk garden I'm going to be putting in crocuses, snow drops, and eventually more muscari- this time Magic Carpet Mix- it's all the other shades and colors the muscari come in, and I got a bag I can pot up for propagating this winter.
Got some other bulbs for potting up this winter too- mostly fritillaria, including a tiny chocolate and yellow one I'm extra excited bout- weren't cheap since it was Milager's and such- 90 cents a bulb! But they are dear, and I couldn't resist- and till I know where they go outside I'm happy to grow them out in pots for a while.
Still got the front bed to dig up, clean up, and set in with bulbs- and plant markers. Got all the bulbs, but the plants won't be going in till next year. I'm going to use some of the small lavenders that are growing well and will set nicely as second year plants in the spring. The mums suffered a bit this summer, and look shaggy as hell. And what I thought was a bronze last year turned out to be a delightful pink with creamy yellow center instead, so some plans have shifted, lol. With the bronze I picked up this year, I now have mothers of sunny yellow, white, pink, and bronze to grow out- plus a handful of first year whites, yellows, and pinks that survived the summer. All of them are blooming now, so I can re-tag them so I can tell them apart again more reliably than just foliage shapes. Then they will start getting trimmed and such for cuttings and shaping again. By the time they are ready to go in next summer, the bulbs will have died back and the lavenders should be established.

And ugh.. need to tackle the mint hill, seriously. I let it run rampant last year to give the mints more time to establish and crawl- but now it's a bit too rampant and needs serious cutting back. No pulling out anymore- now I want those weedy root masses to stay in place to keep the hill in check while the mints keep stabilizing in. But now the mints are ready. And some of the smaller woody tree weed crap needs it's final killings- not just cutting down this time, but also painting the stumps with kill solution. I'm tired of fighting the damn things, and it's time to move on. I'm going to whack down that weedy thing growing in the bed of Jay's Sky Irises too and give it a kill painting. I got enough chemicals left to do another round of spraying the driveways too- but between all of that, it will use the chemicals up, and that's not a bad thing. I really hate using chemicals, and these have been around for a while now and need using up.

But enough with ramblings, time to publish this entry and go make some dinner- doing breakfast tonight :)