Natures Bug Control Has Paid Me A Visit

I just cleared out the weeds and planted yesterday but already one of Mother Natures insect control squad has paid me a visit!

Female Cardinal

Female Cardinal

Sorry the pictures are so grainy I took it through the screen in the window.  She would have flown away if I tried going to to take the picture.  

She is a Female Cardinal and she loves to eat bugs so I"m very happy to see her visiting my garden.

One Step At a Time

I've been working on the back yard a little at a time.  I start in the morning when it is still cool outside and work till I get too hot.  First I had to clean up all the garbage left around the back yard by the former owners.

You cant see it well and your probably thankful for that but this is a half a bag of rotting larvae infested bird seed left out in the back yard near the house.  Great way to attract rodents and bugs to your house don't ya think?

After getting rid of the garbage it was time to get rid of the weeds ...as you can see some of them were higher then the fence.  I actually had to stop after the first couple of minutes to hunt down which box had the leather work gloves.   There were weeds with stickers on them growing everywhere.

 Now I have a small garden started.  I picked up some seedlings from the local garden shop since I haven't gardened here in Florida I figured it was a great way to see what is growing right now!  I have tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet peas and the pepper plants you see there were already growing so I just left them to keep going.

The black drip hose was already there and once I figured out how to hook it up I put it into use.  I also found several spray nozzles and a sprinkler in the mass of weeds.  Nothing like some free lawn care supplies.

Now I don't really want the garden up next to the house but since the space is already here and I don't have any where else prepared I figured it was a good start.  I'll have some nice fresh veggies while I set up a more permanent home.

Starting to Green Our New House

When I started this blog I mentioned how when I had a house of my own I would work on making it a greener home.  Using less resources seems rather important as humanity continues to grow in numbers.  We have over 7 billion people on this plant and unless there is a terrible plague or a giant meteor takes us out we will continue to grow with the same limited resources as always.  Every time we work on using less we help to relieve the burden we are placing on the planet.  It's the choices we regular everyday people make ever day that will help solve our problems.

Since the best place to start is in your own home that is where I"m starting too.  There was this cool feature in our home and one I hadn't considered but now want in all the bathrooms:  

Its a timer for the exhaust fan.  Think of how often you flip this thing on and forget to flip it back off.  I know it happens all to often in our house.  Exhausts fans are great for getting rid of stinky smells or all the humidity from your shower but they also suck out your air conditioning and heating.  Having a time is a great way to make sure you only use it as long as its needed and no worries about forgetting to turn it off!

Our first personal upgrade was going to be the insulation in the attic.  It needs to be thicker for maximum benefits but the hubby is still trying to figure out the best way to get it all done.  In the mean time the toilet in our bathroom had developed a leak at the bottom and needed replacing anyway (it was rather worn out).  So we got this one:  

two stage flush

As you can see it has two buttons on top.  The smaller one is for number 1 and the larger one is for number 2.  A great design to help save water and one we will be placing in all our bathrooms when the time comes!

Insert Favorite Swear Word Here " !@#$%$"

I was bringing in the garbage can from the curb and I felt something on my hand.  There was on little ant walking on the side of my hand.  I brushed it off and it started itching!  Next day the side of my hand hurt like hell and I had these six nasty little bumps.  This was .... My first Fire Ant Encounter!!!   After I found the first one I did notice there were about 100 on the lid of the trash can!  Nasty little buggers I'm glad I only ran into one!  

Fire Ant Bites

Where To Start

Well here it is my new back yard.  It's pretty much a blank slate but there are a few trees we are looking at getting rid of.  They seem to be dropping branches like crazy and are rather close to the house so for hurricane sake they have to go.  

Thinking of putting in a good size dog run on this side of the yard to help keep their mess in one area.

Tons of room but what to put where?

The last residents had a bit of a garden here mostly hot peppers.  This has got to move I don't want the food stuff growing so close to the house there are plenty of critters living around here and I don't want to draw them toward the house.

I can't decide what I want to do with all this space.  I know I want a dog run and a garden but that leaves me plenty of room.  I think I want some kind of patio near the door to help keep the sand out of the house and some grass but then what and where do I start?  If you know anyone who might have a suggestion send them my way will you?

No Luck Like Dumb Luck!!!

I was doing a little cleaning up of some of the potted plants the former owners left behind when they moved.  Silly me just grabbing leafs and yanking them off.  The hubby yells LOOK OUT!  as a big wasp flies by my head.  There must be a wasps nest over there .... 

I looked at the leaves in my hands and this is what I found right next to my hand.

I took this later after the wasps had left!

It was just dumb luck I didn't grab the sucker and get stung!

A Little Every Day

I have so much to do right now it makes my brains spin in a whirlpool of get it done.  The Yard is a giant mess of weeds, leaves that weren't raked last year, sticks sticks everywhere and more weeds.  I have tons of boxes to unpack and need to find a new job.  Some times it just makes me tired to think about!

I'm trying to get myself into a schedule (at least until I start work) starting with yard work first thing in the morning.  The heat and humidity during the day makes working all day in the yard out of the question ... at least until I get more use to it.  Yesterday I gathered up some of the yard debris to start up my compost bin it didn't take long but boy did I work up a quick sweat. There are so many leaves on the ground that I may have to set up a bigger compost bin.  There is no way my little tumble bin will handle it.  I started on this pile here

 It may not look like it but the leaves have been left there so long it was actually composting in place.  You can tell this is composting because every where else in the yard is all sand but here it looks like top soil.

Look at that rich earth under the leaves

I gathered up some of the already composted leaves as well as the stuff on top to give my bin a good head start.  I think I'll start in the tumble bin add plenty of good kitchen scraps to get a nice hot start. Then set up a second bin and dump the tumbled compost into the second bin to finish and start with more of the leaves from around the yard.  If I clean up one section of the yard every morning I should have it cleaned up in no time with out over doing it and wanting to quit.  

After that I have to figure out how I want to configure my back yard to meet all my needs.  I was hoping to catch a few episodes of Yard Crashers on HGTV (yes we have cable back the hubby insisted) but it turns out that the show has moved to the DIY channel which is part of the "sports and information" package and I'm not paying for a bunch of sports channels that I will never watch for the one show I would watch.  I won't be watching HDTV anymore either its no longer a home and garden channel now its all about buying and selling houses ... they need to change their name to the Real Estate channel.  Lucky for me their website still has plenty of good ideas so I guess I'll go take a look there.

Turkey Creek

We went to check out the local hiking trail here in Niceville called Turkey Creek.

Its a nice little hike with some swimming areas set up.  Its 3/4 of a mile one way so 11/2 miles round trip.  There were some canoes in the river we are not sure where they put in ...there is a place at the end of the trail but they didn't go by us on the way in so there must be another place outside the trail. Here are some pics of some of the wild life.  We went rather late in the day so there wasn't a lot but the snake we saw would make me think twice about swimming there.

Cotton Mouth ??? Maybe not sure

can you see the frog?

this isn't the best picture of the spiders that were all along the trail I'll have to try again next time

Turtles ... its weird we only saw them on one part of the trail the whole area was covered in water

Frog on a lily pad ...talk about cliche lol