Croaking Friends

Just a couple of our little garden friends.

Throughout the summer season we gain a few, when I say few it's about 4-6, frogs in our little hosta garden pond.  They hang out all around the house until sunset and then they head to the pond and start singing.    You would think it's so calming to hear the sounds of frogs but when you have to shut all your windows just to hear your TV at night, it can kind of get annoying.

No matter how loud the little guys can croak, it's always fun to see them out and about, even when they are climbing your window screens.

Just a little Hosta garden

After five years, here is the result of our hosta garden.

It was the summer when the economy started going down hill, my husband was laid off and I work at our town's grade school. Without receiving many paychecks during the summer, projects were put on the back burner.  I had gathered so many different hostas, daylillies and rocks throughout the years, I decided to create a hosta garden in the only "shade" area at our place.  The hostas were already free, split them out and in 3 years, it should fill out pretty good, right?

My husband didn't care about another garden, it was just that much less we had to mow.  So I took our tiller and started in and 35x35 feet later I was done.  I stood at the corner and thought "What in the world was I thinking!"  My husband stepped outside, shook his head and went back inside. 

Now that this garden was just a little larger than plan, I had to try and figure out how to fill the space.  Why not have a type of sitting area and maybe a small pond, those would be great fillers.  We had this very old sidewalk that went to an old chicken coop that is no longer there.  I had my son Jake take a sledge hammer to the sidewalk, pulled out the bigger pieces and we placed them into a small square patio.  I mean what else was we going to do with that old cement so let's recycle it.

Then came the pond, I stood there with the shovel and out comes my husband.  Bless his heart, he steps in and starts digging.  He dug two deep holes in the pond in hopes of having fish.  We wanted to make sure the fish had somewhere to go if they encountered the neighborhood raccoons during the night.

As I started bring the rocks from my other gardens over.  I had so many rocks, we were able to create a type of waterfall.  The only things we had to buy were small slabs of slate from a quarry, water pump and a liner.  After laying the liner down, we positioned the rocks, outlining the pond.  We carefully stacked the rocks and slate slabs to create the waterfall and it worked out great!  We gave gold fish just one try and after they died two days later, that idea was done.  Also I have a real issue with green water so what I do to keep the pond clean is to use pool shock.  Sprinkle a little shock in the water every couple weeks, run it through the pump and the water stays crystal clear.

I knew it would take a few years for the hostas to fill in but I'm really happy on how it turned out.  It looked great for Jake's graduation.

Searching out the Pickers

We spent the day in Davenport, Iowa at a high school softball tournament watching our daughter play.  After the first game we had 2 hours to wait so we decided to take a quick trip to LeClaire, Iowa.  My family watches the American Pickers show and we knew their shop was in LeClaire, about 15 minutes from the softball field.  So off we went and it we were a little surprised.

The shop is not as big as you think.  The thing that was neat is that some of the items displayed was actually items I watched them purchase on the show.  No site of Mike or Frank but understandable, we all need a little time off.  I do have to say that the town of LeClaire is cute and we are now planning to go back in a few weeks!

Oh, by the way, the team won one game and lost the second.  Our girls little 1A team looked great against those 5A teams.  Go Lions!