"12 Minute BAD BOY" in Marker, by Little Munchkin

Well ladies, I'm sorry I haven't posted in quite a long time, but today warrants a good post.

My wonderful, two year old boy decided to make my home into an art gallery in 12 minutes flat today. And of course, it couldn't have been done in crayon or something easy to remove. It was a red permanent marker. =/

Thankfully the carpet, cabinets, wood railing, trim and bar stools were able to be saved. On the other hand, the walls must all now be painted on my main floor. I really can't believe he did it, and I'm furious at him. However, the work is quite nice for his abilities.

Too bad he didn't choose paper this time.

~Munchkin

P.S. I guess I should thank him a little bit, I've personally wanted to paint my home for a long time.

Almost killed my bamboo

Gardening--indoors and out--has been the focus of my week.  My mom got me a Captain Kirk hosta a couple of weeks ago, and on the 4th of July I went and got two other hosta cultivars to keep it company and planted them in the backyard.  I also added some zebra grass, a red lupine, and a heucherella.

We re-seeded the bald patches in the backyard, and I am hopeful that the grass makes a recovery.  I think Mr. Borealis has been trimming it too short, contributing to the over-drying and yellowing.

Indoor gardening today included moving my giant coleus from my kitchen to the outdoors; I kept a clipping to grow indoors in case the whole thing dies on me, but so far so good.

I re-potted my ever-growing jade plant.  While attempting to switch the jade and my Norfolk Island Pine, I accidentally knocked over the bamboo plant that my mom got me when I turned 16.  It was in this cute little planter shaped like bamboo with a mama and baby panda climbing on it, and I broke part of the planter.  : (

Majorly upsetting, to say the least.  I spent two hours this afternoon trying to gently remove my bamboo from the broken planter without destroying the roots or further breaking the planter (still salvageable as a pen or brush cup, but it will definitely never function as a planter again).  The roots had crowded every inch of the tiny planter, which makes sense, as they've been growing in there for 13 years.

I am anxiously hoping that the bamboo survives in its new home.  It will be a sad day if it dies, as it's the oldest plant in my indoor garden.

I have clippings available if anyone wants any of the following, which would be easy to re-root:

- Coleus: easy to grow indoors and out, and difficult to kill.  Mine is a maroon, green, and tan variety.

- Spider plant:  I currently have several babies off of the main plant that need new homes.  Grow indoors, shade tolerant.

- Jade plant: grow indoors, needs sun.

Alula

Pictures I've been meaning to post

Ladies, these are some things I have been talking about for a while, but never got around to posting the pictures.  

Back in June, a swarm of honey bees took up residence in my back courtyard.  They weren't aggresive, so I was able to get very close to take pictures.  They settled on this chair, and the internet said they were likely to move on to somewhere else on their own within 48 hours, so we left them.  They did not move on.  We called a bee catcher to come and collect them (for free - many bee catchers view this as a mutual favor), and he put them in a box and left them to settle in before he would come and take the box away.  Unfortunately, we had been besieged by the stupidest bees on the planet, and instead of staying in the very nice bees' mansion of a home he left, they moved out of the box and re-swarmed on one of the chair legs of our patio set.  The bee catcher came and removed them the hard way--using a customized no-kill vacuum.

Honeycomb that the bees left on our chair.

A rabbit in my new backyard--there are tons of them in the neighborhood, and mostly not afraid of people.  We like to leave carrots out for them--they also eat any fruit that drops from our trees.

One of the rose bushes in my yard.

Cherries from one of my trees--they are choke cherries, and slightly tart, but I have still enjoyed many a handful.  I'm planning to make preserves.

The apples on the trees are getting huge.  I ate one a couple of weeks ago when they were smaller, because I didn't think the fruit would mature to such an extent.  But it did, and I estimate we have 50-75 apples between the two trees.

If any of you don't have the link to the pictures of the new house, and you would like to see, email me.  Our current frustration is that the previous owners painted all the walls purple.  It doesn't look purple until you see it next to white, but it's PURPLE.  50 shades of purple.  Purple in every room--carpet and walls.  We have already painted all of the bedrooms upstairs and are now working into the den area, where this pastel purple currently resides.

Alula

Milestones

Ladies, I am buying a new house tomorrow.  It is so exciting!  The house is super awesome, and super in need of fixing, and the one thing that I would change...it's about an hour south of where we are now.

But it's not in Montana, and we must all remember that.  ;)

It is a 2-story, tudor-esque home at the end of a cul-de-sac, 4 bed 3 bath, on 1/3 an acre, and it has a kick butt back yard.  It has a laundry chute from the master bedroom down to the dedicated laundry room, and a 5-piece master bath.  It also needs a new roof, it failed a pressure test (which means there's a leak in one of the pipes, somewhere, inside the house).  The sprinkler system needs to be redone.  There's poor drainage around the house.

There's minor damage to the foundation, some of the window seals are broken, the furnace, AC, and water heaters may need replacing, and the patios should probably be re-poured.

The carpet is royal purple in a way that reminds me of a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater.  These people had a thing for purple, because it's all over the rooms upstairs.

 The backyard has a sidewalk that loops around the lawn, with garden areas around the edges.

 The fireplace needs to be serviced.

 The Master Bath.

The play set in the backyard (it's safe--HUD put up the orange fence to keep people from climbing on it while they owned the property).

In short, it's a lot of work, but the house is pretty neat.

...Today, I officially hit the 100 book mark.

Y'all come visit me now!  It's kid friendly and everything!
Alula