Fallen tree (June 5)

There has been so many storms rolling by and just like any other one, this one didn't seem all too bad.  Until our neighbor called out to us later in the afternoon the day after.  One of our trees in the backyard had fallen into her yard!!

The entire branch on one side broke off. Yikes!

I suppose this is one way to meet your neighbor.  Ha ha!

It's funny because we were just mentioning how we've seen in her yard sometimes but she never really makes eye contact. Well, I suppose that day has finally come to say hello!

Still can't believe how it fell over. Thankfully there was no property damage.  That would be bad if the tree fell on her house. Or ours!

As if clean up wasn't enough at the back, there was more to clean up in the front too. Nothing too severe I suppose.  Looks like we are calling our tree guys back for clean up.  That's quite an "ouch" to the pocket book!

We did manage to get more mulch:

... which I have yet to distribute around the yard.  I've just been too lazy. And it doesn't help when there are so many mosquitoes!!

We did finally purchase a hydraulic log splitter.  It's great that the boys were quick to be familiar with it:

I say that because they have their work cut out for them.  Look at the pile they have to go through!

Some of the logs are from out tree but another pile of it is actually from our neighbor's trees. On that same night/storm, not 1 but 2 trees behind our neighbor's house also went down!  And while their tree guys were cleaning up, we saw them putting the logs by the side of the road.  I told Bobby to give them a "tip" and well, you can see where the logs ended up.  Ha ha!  At least we won't have to worry about getting firewood for the coming winter :-D

Flowers in the garden

This is probably my favorite time of the year, when all the different flowers start to bloom.  Although, it does start to get quite messy! I read online recently on something called "chaotic gardening".  Yeah, that would be my garden.  LOL!!

I probably don't know the names of half of these flowers in the garden.  Like this one.  It really was looking like a weed prior to the flowers blooming:

Yup, no idea on this pink one either:

I suppose I could look these up, but who really has the time for that anymore. Ha ha!

This one I know, it's a hydrangea :-)

They've been sort of flopping over because of all the rain recently!

Pretty random, but found this one and only pink one by the side of the yard.  Supposedly the color of the hydrangea could actually depend on the soil??!

The roses could be looking better - not sure why they are pretty frail looking this season:

I don't normally put fertilizer.  Maybe I need to start doing that for the roses.  Plus, they have been overcrowded by some other plants!

Hmmm, nope - not sure what this one is:

This one is a bee balm.  I know this because hummingbirds love them :-)

So far, we've only had 1 hummingbird this season.  It's like the tiniest thing ever!

These are flowers that come out of the hostas:

This one is some sort of succulent:

This one below is a fairly tall plant - it's a different type of milkweed.  It's definitely very strange looking compared to the milkweed we were familiar with while living back in California!

Pretty day lilies:

And another type of lily that's line up along the road:

I took a photo of the garden from the living room downstairs.  See what I mean by chaotic gardening?! LOL!!

Yup! We have some corn growing too this year!  It's blue corn - which I have never planted or eaten before, other than those already processed in a bag.  So it will be interesting once it's time to harvest!

And speaking of harvest, the potatoes are starting to wilt and actually even more wilted than when this photo was taken a week ago:

I wonder how many potatoes we are going to get.  Guesses, anyone??!

And a little baby cucumber, which unfortunately went bad before I could even eat it.  But then again, it was rather spikey!!

The vegetable garden has been rather slow this year.  Maybe they are not quite in the strategic spots.  AND... I wonder if the self-watering planter that I've been using for the strawberries is now a breeding ground for mosquitoes.  There are like a gazillion of them in that backyard!  I did just purchase a couple of those electric blue-light mosquito zappers.  Hopefully that will help!!

Perhaps by next season I will try and name a few more flowers in the yard ;-)

Outdoor mural at friend's farm

It was an exciting start to June/last month.  After being happy and satisfied with how the mural in our bedroom turned out, I decided to advertise my mural painting services within the neighborhood's group email.  And lucky enough, a friend of ours that owns a farm nearby decided to hire me!

It was definitely a learning process, from consulting to picking out paint, and also trying to figure out pricing!  So as of right now, we are going with $5/sqft.  And yes, who knew that mural artist actually charge by square footage!  I did actually give them a tad of a discount because there was going to be a lot of white space in this mural.  And of course, there was also the "friend discount".  I definitely spent a lot more time than what I had planned on it.  Mostly because the wall was not all flat as you will see in a bit in the photos. Nonetheless, I'm so happy that the mural turned out well and that Beth and Mitch are so happy with it! :-)

Beth said she wanted bright colors and the flowers to be native ones.  And I actually found color inspirations in her garden:

The reds and yellows:

The blues:

Here it is!

I was a bit concerned seeing these colors but once I got the sample paint, it didn't look so bad thankfully:

Some practicing:

More practicing.  These ferns are a tough one!

These colors are definitely bright!

It ended up being 23ft by 9 ft:

But technically, with the over 1 feet of foundation on one side, it was about 10ft on a ladder!

Here goes!!

As you can tell now, the wall is not all flat, so it took a lot longer to get into these little nooks. And trying to get straight lines was also a challenge!

I wasn't so sure about how the top of these coneflowers looked at first.  But I'm glad it was fine in the end:

It actually took me an entire day to sketch on the wall so by now, this is end of Day 2:

Here is end of Day 3:

Saturday/Day 4 was a short day as there was potential rain in the afternoon.  So I could not risk having my paint "melt" on the wall!

By Sunday, it's end of Day 5:

This fern is taking forever!! 

I did have Charlie come out and help me hold the ladder.  It's been so crazy windy!!

The cat did occasionally keep me company too:

Although, it did use me as a scratching post once.  Ouch! Not nice - haha! Thankfully I had my "paint jeans" on and what's a few more scratches and paint on it :-D

The mural is coming along! :-)

Finally done with the fern!! And adding some of the insects.  You can see part of the butterfly to the top left of the photo:

One of the bees in pencil:

And after, with paint.  It turned out pretty well! I'm so happy :-)

By Day 6:

The wings of this dragonfly took a while too, but it turned out so well.  Yay! Especially when the dragonfly was a symbolic insect to Beth.  Phew, the pressure was definitely on!

Sunset on the final day:

Ta da!!

The ferns are supposed to be 2-tone, based on the final sketch, but I liked just having the lighter color against the darker stems.  And thankfully Beth agreed. It would have been pretty painstaking to go through that one particular fern again.  Ha ha!

Crazy to think I started with this...

And by the time Beth and Mitch returned from their family vacation, I was so happy to be able to give them this!

I've yet to sign the mural but while I've just decided on a business name, this is a good photo to end with :-)

Let's hope for some more mural work.  It's been really quiet as in no other emails/request, so I'm thinking I might have to visit some businesses in the nearby towns.  I better bring my "A" game!

Oh, and forgot to mention, all those hours "working" (42 hours and 5 minutes to be exact) and having to handle 2 ladders, paint, glaze, and what not, I managed to lose about 5lbs.  Woohoo... bonus! LOL!!