Before and After - Cutting Burning Bush in Minnesota

One thing that I love about blogging - is the ability to see things that I have long since forgotten - 

I take hundreds of thousands of pictures, and putting them out here on this blog enables me to quickly and easily find things back again.

Just last night I got stuck looking at pictures of the kids and their friends from three years ago.

It seems like a LIFE TIME ago, yet, like just last week.

How does that happen?

Anyhoo - 

Not too long ago I uncovered a photo that inadvertently caught the burning bush next to our front door. It was only about 2 feet high, and looked so so much better than the scraggly thing we now have right outside our front steps.

A quick search of google and some 70 degree temps had us feeling ambitiuos, 

so we decided to tackle that burning bush.

Tackle, as in...

Chop. 

Chop.

CHOP!

I really, REALLY hope we don't regret cutting this Burning Bush down to the ground.

I guess we'll know soon enough if we did the right thing?

Already it looks SO. MUCH. BETTER!

I love the look of the Burning Bush.

Will it grow back?

Have you ever cut one of these down to nothing?

Time will tell, I suppose.

(After the 10 inches of snow we got last night, AFTER cutting this down last week, melts!)

 

Stay tuned!

Pin It
 

Scratch n Sniff...

If there's one thing I do right...

it's flowers.

The southern exposure on our house is remarkable for growing things!

I simply love how these multiply and burst every August!

Pin It

Green Thumb - Raising Monarch Caterpillars

Over the past two, three? four? years or more, I've really enjoyed figuring out what goes where in our yard and in our garden - 

It's a work in progress, to be sure - 

 I thought these bright yellow flowers were so pretty - but, I knew I didn't plant them in my garden.

Perhaps some birds did? That certainly wouldn't be the first time something popped up completely out of place - but, a quick poll on Facebook told me that these were in fact, pretty little weeds!

Figures doesn't it?

We've really come a long way - and I'm loving how full things are! 

 One thing that I don't need any help figuring out though - Is the raising of the Monarch Butterflies!

 The white 'dot' on the underside of the milkweed is a Monarch Egg! We have dozens!!

 I brought just three lil eggs inside to our butterfly habitat - 

And sure enough if they didn't hatch into teensy tiny little baby cats!

 I used a quarter for comparison - you can BARELY see the lil guys!

Barely as long as three letters on UNITED! WOW!

Talk about TINY!

We know from experience that these guys will get quite a bit larger - 

And I can't wait to watch them grow & turn into the beautiful Monarch Butterflies that they are destined to become!  I need to get outside and 'rescue' the rest of our babies that are hatching on the milkweed - but they are so teensy tiny they are hard to find at this stage! 

Stay tuned for this year's first round of raising Monarch Cats!

(& - Just for fun, we have planted Dill and ack, what else did I plant for the Swallowtails?

I can't for the life of me remember! Oh well - here's to seeing if it works!)

Pin It

Inching Along -

Every day, three days in a row, this lil guy was spotted by our kiddos inching along various random surfaces in our front yard - 

 The kids loved watching him inching along their hands - 

 But I have no clue anything about these guys...good, bad...ugly? Just plain cute?

 I do know they are a lot cuter than the much much longer slithery things that can't seem to move off of our property...UGH. FOUR of them sunning themselves, or mating, or God knows what - under our deck last Friday morning - RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!

Yep, I'll take these guys any old day!

Pin It