I learned something new...

Did you know that the peanut is actually a relative of the pea family and that it isn't actually a nut at all? I had no idea! Though I guess I had never thought about it before. Anyway, earlier this week Tyson was working in our garden and found a peanut that had sprouted. We assume that it came in the load of donkey dung that my brother brought us a month back for our garden. In one end and out the other whole I guess. My mom said that the digestion process it probably what caused it to sprout. Anyway, being the guy that he is, the first thing that Tyson thought to do with it was plant it. So he pulled out a couple of marigolds that I had planted (they were nearly dead) and he put it in pot. Well, I went to go look at it today and low and behold, we have a peanut plant! I guess that peanuts are produced much like potatoes. Who knew? I have no idea what we'll do with it or if it will even grow here, but only time will tell I guess. In the mean time, Tyson keeps his potted peanut next to the garden to make sure that it gets watered with the rest of our plants everyday.

Tyson's Pride and Joy

I've mentioned before that I often lose Tyson to the garden sometimes. Well, he spent the whole morning in it again getting it weeded and raked out and such. So when I came home from work this afternoon it looked fantastic! Everything seems to be growing rather well. Our corn is chest high (for me that is, it comes about to Tyson's waist). I'm glad that we bought tomato cages when we did a couple of weeks ago because they have really taken off. The yellow pear tomato plant is already over three feet tall and our cucumber is taking over, the the cantelope is also trying to invade the corn patch. My goodnss, doesn't it know that it is only June, we have a couple of months more to go still! I'm not really complaining, I love our garden. We picked our first cucumber yesterday. I know, it is silly, but it is our first garden so we are pretty excited about it all. We've started planning out the beds that we will build next Spring so that we are ready to get going on that project when the time comes. Unfortunatly, given when we moved into our house, we didn't have too much time for planning, we just bought and planted.

As far as our upcoming projects go, we have our work cut out for us for next month. We are going to be painting our living room and dining room. I have been racking my brain about this for months because it is a somewhat open floor plan, the rooms flow together, so I had to figure out the whole scheme for the living room, kitchen and dining room before I could move forward on anything. Anyway, the other day I finally figured it out. The dining room will be the red, the kitchen will be the lighter shade of green with the cabinets painted white and the living room will be the yellow color parallel to the green there. All of the trim, doors and ceilings are going to be the same beach white color (a pattern I have been keeping up throughout the house thus far). Anyway, some have said I'm a little crazy, but I think that it will be great. I'll post pictures next week when I'm done and you'll see, it will be fantastic!

Gardening...

I know, I know, you are all eager to see how my yard and garden are coming. Okay, I'm sure that you really aren't all that excited about it, but I sure am. I have never had a garden of my own so for our garden to be growing as well as it has been is VERY exciting to me!
I was asked yesterday what we were growing so here's the run down. Behind the corn we have a cantaloupe, then of course the corn. In front of the corn we have a cherry tomato and a cucumber. Then there are six more tomato plants, one of them being a yellow pear variety. In front of those are our peppers, red and green bells as well as a jalapeno. You can's really see them in this picture, but in front of the peppers are our onion plants. Our primary purpose in planting our garden this year is to be able to make salsa this fall, everything else is just for fun and to save us money at the grocery store. That and to have tomatoes untainted with salmonella.An then of course, there are my flowers. My petunias and daisies on my front porch are growing wonderfully and just getting more full and beautiful every week. We are finally supposed to have warm weather all week, so I'm excited to see where we are at in the next couple of weeks.
I had to put this picture up because I simply love the color of the roses on this bush. It is a little wild to Tyson is working on getting some starts going so that he can train a new bush that will give me the same vibrant orange color with fewer thorns.
Okay, this last one is where we laid some sod last week. This was where the dog run was and we moved that because we wanted to have a little more backyard and I also didn't want the run right up next to the garage anymore. I'm glad to see it all taking so well.

Painting

So, the second bedroom upstairs in our house and been in desperate need of paint. I was this horrible dark grey with a lighter grey on the ceiling and the framing and doors. While the paint job was okay, the dark colors made the room look so small. And of course, having been planning on painting it we have not been using it at all.

Well, we had been planning in painting it a melon color, however, the other night we got to thinking and reconsidered. We went to the store to buy paint and I let Tyson pick out the color. So, the room is blue now. I actually like the color. The picture really doesn't show it that well, but it is actually a very comfortable color and it fits in well with some other colors that I have chosen.

Canning!

I came to the relization yesterday afternoon that I have become much more domestic lately. I was grocery shopping yesterday morning and found a fantastic price on strawberryies (4lbs for 2.95!) and my first thought was "I should make some jam." So I went and bought the pectin, etc and now for the first time in my life I have made freezer jam.

I had started purchasing canning jars a bit ago because we are planning on making salsa this Fall and I wanted to buy them a bit at a time rather than all at once. I have been working on getting our food storage together (it is so much easier to do when there is actually space to store it) and so I have been thinking about canning, etc so that we can have some fruits and vegitables stores with our grains and such. I normally don't worry about this kind of stuff, but now I'm getting all domestic. My questions is, when did this happen to me?

Root Canals Suck!

I'm pretty sure that the idea behind getting this root canal done was to get me out of pain. A couple on months ago I chipped my tooth pretty bad which caused some real damage so I needed a root canal. I've been in pain since I chipped it and the dentist said that the root canal would get me out of pain. I still have to get the build up and crown done, but that will have to wait a bit until I can pay for it. I realize that the procedure, was just done yesterday, but dang I hurt! And I'm even on vicodin right now! So I'm a bit loopy, I hurt, and now I get to go to work for eight hours... Oh well, hopefully it will get better soon.

More updates on our house...

So, I know that this is a little bit silly that all that I seem to write about is the work that we are doing on the house and in our yard, but that is what we spend most of our free time doing.

We have several very old rose bushes around the yard and they finally starting to bloom. We are going to wait and see what they look like before we decide what to do with them.

Also, the dandelion plague that we have been fighting is nearly gone. We are finally getting grass instead of weed and that is wonderful!

We spent all day yesterday working outside on the lawn and placing block to create some flower beds around the house. We'll get the fill dirt to finish them up in a week or so. Yesterday we also pulled out the old dead lilac bush and the tree on the side yard that was awkwardly placed. We also went through and finished weeding the beds around the house, moved the dog kennel and smoothed out the area that it covered. We'll be planting some grass to fill in the back in the empty spots, but not until we finish grading.

Overall, it is coming along rather well. We still have a long way to go of course. After all, we have owned the home for just under a month.