Yesterday on my way home from my live segment on a New Day Northwest I only had one thing on my mind. GET OUTSIDE and plant something. 🙂 And I did. In fact I was out there until about 8 o’clock last night. It was pure bliss.
I’m happy to report my Costco flower basket has been hung by the front door and my front porch flowerpots have been planted {I still need to find some sweet potato vines to tuck in there though}.
I also planted 5 flats of seeds! {Dwarf sunflowers and 3 kinds of lettuce}. Once the sunflowers are about 6″ tall I’ll move them to my front flower bed. 
Did I tell you The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird is home for the summer? YES SHE IS.
She wanted to stop by Mr. & Mrs. Hillbillies house to check out their chicks and the coop they set up. Unfortunately, there has already been 1 causality. A raccoon stuck it’s paw through the wire and tried to pull out one the 8 week old chicks for a snack. The sweet little hen died.
Mr. Hillbilly has since set up an electric fence around the perimeter, armed himself with his .22 and put up his game camera.
I get the feeling he will be passing out coon skinned caps this Christmas.
He’s keeping busy waiting for the raccoon to come back by making gumbo on the back porch.
Shortly after we moved from our last neighborhood, loggers came in and cleared about 1,000 acres of forest behind the houses. Everyone loves the fact that they have more sunlight in their backyard, but I don’t think anyone is happy about their forest like setting being taken away. I know I would have missed it dearly.
Kids need dirt and trees and trails to explore.
Wouldn’t you agree?
~Mavis
Lana says
That is so ad about the cleared forest. We live on 2 1/2 acres. The front acre is our yard and where our house is situated and then we have an acre and a half of woods behind that can never go away, which I have always loved. Our kids spend many, many hours in those woods and it was such a blessing for their imaginations and play.
Lana says
SAD
Teri says
OMG you are lucky you were able to sell it before they logged.
Betty says
Playing devil’s advocate here, but just as you don’t like people chastising you for what you do to your property, you can’t chastise them for logging theirs. I live in the country and am surrounded by forests and logging sites alike. It’s a give-and-take. The trees will grow back quicker than you think.
Tamara says
Amen!
Susannah says
Making the simple statement that she would’ve missed not having the trees behind her former house is hardly “chastising” (definition: to reprimand severely) the landowner. I didn’t read anything in Mavis’ comments to suggest that she thought the landowner didn’t have the right to log the trees, only that she appreciated having them there while she lived in that house. Please don’t create an item of contention out of an innocuous comment.
Rosaleen says
1) Bummer about the trees. Exploring woods is a great activity, no matter one’s age.
2) I wanna be neighbors with the Hillbillies!
3) Tip Hero linked to a bunch of uses for epsom salt. One was raccoon deterrent. They supposedly hate the taste. The specific suggestion was spreading it around trash cans that were prone to raccoon raids. It might be worth trying sprinkling Epsom salt around the chicken coop. Not close enough so the chickens can get into it, but a perimeter. It may not hurt the chickens, but who wants to find out the hard way?
Mavis Butterfield says
Thanks Rosaleen, I will tell the them! 🙂
Mavis says
Epsom salt. Got it. Awesome suggestion! Thanks.
kcb says
I believe that the cleared area behind the your old ‘hood will be new houses in a couple years…BTW, the pics of your yard look great.