The Pool is Open for Business!

A few days ago the pool was freezing. I was under the impression it was still cold so I thought it would be fun to entice my son into taking a swim. I told him I'd give him $10 to jump in and swim across. I figured it would be a great show. I was wrong. It has warmed up and they all went in!!

Side note: The nasty looking floaties in the photo is the cotton/pollen stuff from the trees. We had already scooped a ton out before he went in. While Nick was swimming he scooped out the rest.

Lucas really wasn't floating about alone. Nick just scooted over out of the photo to make it look cool.

He is such a good big brother to the younger kids. I mean, Elijah is, too, but Nick actually spends quality time with them. Lucas has been his little shadow lately and it is so cute.

Just bob, bob, bobbing along.

Planted 19 tidal wave hot pink petunias in this bed. They spread 5' (or are supposed to) so they should fill things out nicely over the next few weeks. I still need to add a couple other plants to each end as I ran out of the hot pink.

Then I planted all these wave petunias. This was my experimentation year. I ordered seed which came to $80 with freight. I ended up with 215 plants so that means that they cost me 37 cents each. The cheapest I've found in town is $3.69 per plant. That means I have $793.35 worth of Wave Petunias if purchased locally. That's a pretty big savings. Granted there are some other expenses such as all the pots and flats I purchased this year, but now I'll have those forever. There's also some electricity use, but I'm positive it wasn't $700 worth! Since they were so successful and they take up so much space, I'll be growing three times that next year. (Yes, I have a lot of beds....I will run out of flowers before they are filled and will just plant lettuce in the remaining beds as a filler).

Last night Elijah brought home three friends to spend the night. I have a hard time saying no. Okay, I never say no. At 9:30pm eight kids were swimming in the pool!

Emily really isn't skin and bones...she must have been taking a big breath for her ribs to stick out like that!

This is a view from the upper pool by the garden beds. You can see my new greenhouse to the left, straight ahead Daisy and Gertrude are in the trees and to the right is the big ditch line I mowed the other day (in a post below). Gee, how many thousands of rocks is it going to take to cover the whole thing??

After swimming the boys played a little ball and then I played poker with them until 3am! I don't know how it gets so late, but that has been my bedtime all week. I'm up between 9 and 10. Man, are my days and nights getting backwards!

Today (Friday) I packed up more plants from the greenhouse for the garden beds. I got 169 marigolds in the ground before the rain sent me inside. I so wanted to finish! :(

You know the dancing brooms in Fantasia? I wish this thing would get up and dance its way through the beds for me. I seem to be having a hard time getting to the end of this planting process this year. I could use some help.

Well, there you have it. The last two days at the White House. It is raining now (at 1:00am) and is supposed to rain tomorrow so it may be a day of inside work (yuck). Hope the sun is shining wherever you are visiting from. Also a belated welcome to my new followers. I am honored to have you checking in on our little corner of the world.