Cleaning Up the Yard

The amount of calories burned weeding the driveway for two hours: 554
The amount of calories burned sweeping up dirt and weed mess in driveway for 45 minutes: 240
The state of my knuckles and fingertips: raw

My guy has been nagging me about getting rid of the weeds in the driveway for about a month. I have not weeded the driveway area yet this year at all. I was busy doing other stuff (isn't that the understatement of the year) and hadn't done much about it. Finally, he said if I didn't do something about it, he would buy Round-Up and soak the whole thing (GASP). So, I tried two different kinds of 'organic' weed killers. One I got from Walmart, and it was made from plant oils. It stank, but did a good job. Unfortunately, I used it on the back patio, and ran out, and haven't been able to find it at Walmart since. The other kind I got at the local greenhouse, and it didn't seem to hardly work at all.

I decided just to do it the old-fashioned way. After all, if you spray them, then you just have dead weeds to get out of the cracks still. I figured it was good exercise, and a good excuse to clean out the driveway area. It needed a good dusting too, because I have millions of those tiny white and
yellow orbish spiders, and many of the common brown house spiders all over my yard. Everything has webs in it, and while I'm grateful that they are killing little pests and bugs that bother me, if makes everything look like no one has lived here for years. I should let them go hog wild and we will be all ready for Halloween!

So, I weeded, and swept down cobwebs with the broom, and then swept up all the mess I made, and it turned out like this. Much better, and totally worth the work. Now maybe I can keep anything that tries to make a comeback down with that plant oil stuff. My guy also helped me put up a new hose hanger yesterday.

Now my front yard hose isn't laying all over the driveway, like it was before. Kudos to him, because he had to get a new drill, masonry bits, masonry screw anchors, and some kind of pusher for the bits to do this project with the 'free' hose hanger I found. We were in Menards and I felt like I was in one of those "If you Give a Moose a Muffin' stories. Maybe it was just an excuse to buy a new drill, but I could tell he was very pleased with 'helping me' when he was all done. Lol.

This is my new weapon in the war against weeds. I had to go three places to find one. It will first be used to weed under my sunflowers and okra. Now that they are so huge, this little guy should be able to go between them easily and make it much quicker. I am up to 4 different hoes now. I think from reading other people's blogs, the longer you garden, and the more serious you get, the more kinds of hoes you have. I did a post previously on my love for the shuffle hoe, or stirrup hoe some call it.

http://gardenmom29.blogspot.com/2009/06/weeds-weeds-and-more-weeds.html

I haven't been in the veggie garden for two days, and my spaghetti squash took advantage of that opportunity to double in size. I think this one is getting ready to ripen. It will be the first. I also have tons of yellow crookneck squash coming on. I don't have as many recipes for that one as I do zucchini, so if you have a recipe for yellow squash, let me know please.

Here are my White Beauty tomatoes again, they are almost all bigger than my fist. I have one getting ready to ripen I think. It is turning a little yellow. I guess they are supposed to be true white, so I would guess these aren't ready yet. Or maybe they are...I'm not sure.

I just discovered the other day that my green beans were ready. They were kind of hiding, hanging behind and under the leaves. My son and I picked this basket to make with our supper. We cooked them with bacon and onions in the skillet. Yummy. There are a lot more of them out there. They are Seed Savers heirloom french climbing beans. I would highly recommend.

This is my son...I had to take his picture because he was leaving to go on his very FIRST SLEEPOVER ever. Sniff, sniff....No, actually I was pretty cool about it, his dad was way more freaked about it than me. I just felt a little sad cause my baby is growing up. He was pumped. I did not get any middle of the night phone calls, he had a great time.

My pigs got to try out their new timothy hay cave for playtime. Edith always has this face like, "What're YOU lookin' at?" The cave is also edible, so they can hide in it, and eat it. Bonus.

Gertie has the same wary expression. They probably wondered what the heck I was doing down on the floor with the camera. Now, if only I could teach them to eat in straight lines, I would have my weed problem under control.