A Flower Post

August 19....

On Sunday while we were driving back Homer hauled a bunch more fill. We've added 3200 yards to that hole and really increased our usable property. 

I went around and took some photos of the flowers. I should have slowed down and done a better job as many were blurry. I didn't know that in just a couple days we would have a frost hard enough to kill everything and we haven't had one since. Normally, I would have been able to enjoy my flowers another month, but not this year.

Zinnias....

Double Petunias....

The coolest Celosia.... it looks like a feather....

I had some really pretty Dahlia's this year....

Under the mushroom is where the moose already ate.... she wiped out the rest of it a few days later then what remained froze.

Emily's showing how tall my strawflowers were. The moose ate them before I got them picked.

You can see here the two spots where the moose stood to drink out of the pool.

I have an idea for finishing the water fall.... cementing rock to another piece of liner and then draping it over. Same idea as tile, but cheaper.

Ug! Never did finish the bank although I did pack a few rocks there today. Maybe the kids and I need to take a drive after school one of these days for a few more.

Celosia....

My hanging baskets did really well this year, but obviously I haven't figured out how they get them to hang five feet down. We bought bigger baskets this year. The extra root room did have better results, but not what I was looking for.

The Dusty Miller finally grew and is still going strong. Maybe the pansies crowded it too much or it didn't like the heat.

My yard had entirely too much pink this year, no red, not enough yellow and only a couple white flowers. Definitely giving flower selection more thought this winter.

I really like the Swizzle Zinnia.

These were our favorite Impatiens of all the kinds I've grown over the years.

August 20....
Picked a few things from the greenhouse....

Football Season Starts

August 14...

 After a few trees were dropped the work began. I cut limbs for a couple of hours then Emily finally got up and started hauling the branches away.

Nick showed up about 2:00 to saw and at 3:30 the neighbor came by to cut as well. Emily and I hauled all the logs to the big pile. At 6:00 dad got home, another neighbor stopped by and the guys drank beer and the work ended. LOL 

Some more shots of the moose in the garden.

She's sticking her tongue out at me... na na na na!

Staring longingly at the pool.

August 16....
Emily, Olivia, Lucas and I drove down to Anchorage and spent the day school clothes shopping. This is Emily with Daisy who is Mandy's sister.

The little ones really liked Build-A-Bear.

Then Dorene took us all out to a very fancy dinner at Kobe.

Look at Lucas' face!

 August 17....
In the morning we drove out to Chugiak for Elijah's football game. He's #13 this season. He played offense, defense, punter and field goal kicker. It was really hot and since his accident his brain doesn't control his body temperature correctly and he has a tendency to overheat. Well, it happened and the next thing we know it's half time, he's on the ground vomiting and almost non-responsive. Then they cooled his body down too far and he was hypothermic going into shock about to get an ambulance ride. By the 4th quarter they finally got things straightened out and he went back into the game. My life with Elijah is never dull.

Jessika and Dorene went to the game to cheer him on. 

After the game I got "Homer" tattooed on my ring finger. It's my first tattoo. 

Instead of riding the bus back Elijah stayed with us. We played board games until late. My kids are so happy at Dorene's house and they cry every time we leave. They are really good people. 

August 18....
On the drive home it rained the whole way. Boo! The kids slept and I was on my own to entertain myself. Funny how the 360 miles there is always so quick, but the 360 home takes forever.

Moose in the Garden

August 9...

My vegetable gardens. (As I go back through my summer I'm realizing I sure don't take photos like I used to).

August 11....

August 13....

Nick, Olivia and I took a 45-minute drive to the top of Murphy Dome to pick blueberries. They were so thick you could sit in one spot for 20 minutes without moving. We really should have gone several more times, but never got around to it. 

You can see the smokey haze behind Nick from the forest fires.

This is a stand of trees that I really like, but we decided to take them down. It's hard to gauge in the the photo, but with those ten or so trees gone we can fill in a fairly small hole and extend our usable property another 75 feet.

The cow and twin calves who have been destroying my flowers and vegetables showed up while we were outside. Of you look at the Impatiens in the lower right you can see where she ate the ends the night before. Those plants were two feet tall.

We chased her away and she just stood on the other side of the road watching and waiting for us to go inside. They want to drink out of the little pond. Our summer has been so dry and hot that the ponds in the area dried up.

We stood back and her she came walking right through the gate that isn't.

We chased her off again and later she snuck back around the other side of the house.

Ran her off again and she just came back in the middle of the night and ate. Next June and July we have to finish the fence before she comes around in August.