Mother in Law VI: The Gardening

I have to admit, I like the title. It sounds like a scary flick. Well its a scary life, but I thought I would say some of the good things about the MIL since I have trashed her before.

She gardens. And, she’s actually pretty good at it, although not as good as she thinks she is (weeds and grass growing in the garden). She has a lot of rose bushes that when they are flowering are really pretty, she also has a beautiful Wisteria in the front of the house.

The good stuff lies in the fruit trees she has.

That is from out fig tree. It produces a lot of figs and since Kathy loves them, she’s in heaven while they are in season. Those ones aren’t ripe yet, they go to a nice dark purple colour when ripe.

Next up is almonds. Last year we got about 6 bags full the size of the 5lb potato bags. This year it looks to be the same. The funny thing about the almonds is that Honey will grab ones that fall, shell them and eat the meat inside. Smart dog that one.

Then comes grapes. We have two older vines that produce quite a lot of grapes. They don’t get as big as those in the stores, but they sure are good. Usually the MIL puts bags over the grapes (to keep out birds), but for some reason this year she hasn’t. I hope they are going to be ready enough before we leave.

This is an apple tree that is supposed to have two kinds of apples on it, but so far only the golden delicious have come out.

We also have a pear tree, peach tree and newly planted an olive tree and a lemon tree, hopefully they will start producing next year. We also have the obligatory tomato and cucumber plants. All in all there is a lot of fruit in the garden, and its quite nice.

I wanted to try and grow a Chokecherry and Saskatoon berry tree, according to the MIL the soil is fine for them and the climate, while hot, should be ok if they are watered enough. I never did try though. If we were going to stay, I probably would have asked the MIL for some garden space.

The MIL also loves birds, which makes having bird dogs kinda a weird choice. Honey has gotten 11 birds so far. She also likes barking at the bird shadows in the morning. But the MIL has a few feeders out plus a bird bath she made herself. We also have some pretty hummingbirds come visiting as well.

That one doesn’t really show the beautiful colours we see too. It is fun to watch them fly around and chase off other hummingbirds. I saw one chase another away, then lie in wait hidden in a tree branch, just waiting for the other one to come back. Sure enough about a minute later it came back and headed straight for the feeder. The one in the branch took off like a shot and went directly for the other hummingbird. He chased it away again and finally went back and fed. Like I said very entertaining to watch.

Some other good news. Kathy went to talk with her mother about helping us out with the move. She had been delaying it because with her family you just never know how they’ll react. They could yell and scream and say nasty things, or they could be very nice and do what they can. Thankfully it was the latter today. Her mother is going to try and help, plus talk to her oldest son and see what he can do to help as well. So that is great news, I just hope she’ll follow through with it. Since we are short on what we need right now, I really hope she follows through.

I had 3 calls from things I advertised last night, one was for the 50” TV, another was for all my comics and the last call was for all my PC games, dvds and music. I talked with each one but no one has called back or come to look at the stuff. So a little disappointing. I hope the garage sale this weekend will see me selling some stuff. My biggest sellers may be water and pop though.

A nice article I found about what the best foods its cheaper to grow than buy.

*edit* Almost forgot this…

Visit the other sites  doing the blog-a-day challenge. Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.