My friend’s daughter is getting married this weekend, and it’s such a special affair. I’m honored to be a small part of it.
However, not even this can keep me away from my mission to kill Japanese beetles.
Update: Today’s kill was 15. I’m winning…but I noticed a new bug on the green beans, so I may win the battle but lose the war.
I am continuing waging a war on Japanese beetles. I spotted them on Saturday night, and thought I would just pick them off and drown them. It’s Tuesday evening, and I’ve drowned about 160 beetles. On Sunday, I found about 40 on my green beans. Here’s some damaged leaves.
I’ve been observing them and they like to be together, and that makes it easier for me to shake them off in my bucket. I have Dawn and warm water. Mike said to me “you know what is NOT very attractive? Someone who won’t walk through the yard without a bucket of water with dead beetles.” Sorry. I’m obsessed. We had company Sunday and he made me move my bucket. I keep it handy so I can just zip out, shake and drown.
I’ve also learned that they prefer zinnias over my Mountaineer Half Runner green beans. Normally I have large rows of zinnias out beside the garden, but this year, they are very late (because I put them out late). BIG MISTAKE as I could have been killing them before they got on the beans. Here’s a few that are up and the beetles are trying to eat them as fast as I try to pick them off and kill them. Just a few beetles and so much damage.
I’m hoping that my soil and plants are strong enough to withstand the damage–especially when it comes to my green beans. I spoke with my neighbor and they have not arrived at her house which is one mile up the river. Maybe I’m killing them all before they get there?
I go out 2-3 times per day to check the vines. It only takes a few minutes, and today there was a noticeable drop in the number of Japanese beetles. My friend, Linda Nunley, shared her recipe for discouraging them, and I may try it, but I so enjoy killing them that I’m waiting a few days.
For some reason, I thought they stayed only a couple of weeks but I read tonight that their life cycle is 60 days. This means I’ve got to be checking for beetles for several weeks. These guys are depending on me to take care of the beetles but to do so responsibly. In a bee-friendly way.
I’ve never understood hunting until now. Since this started, I totally get it. Listen up, beetles, there’s a new sheriff in town.
On another subject, Mike kept reminding me that summer had started. Apparently, it was driving him crazy that I had not changed out my chalkboard window. It still looked like this…
A quick change to satisfy him!
We haven’t had internet for several days….something to do with a fuse and Appalachian Power.
While completely locked away from the world, I made a wreath for the door to the guesthouse. It’ll be “Wedding Bells” headquarters in a few days as a bride gets ready for her big day.
This wreath was so simple to make as it involved three things:
1) Bow
2) Chalkboard message
3) Burlap Rosettes
I had burlap on hand where I had a disasterous attempt at making burlap curtains. Nope…that did not work for me. Read about it here. Something that works everywhere else doesn’t always work for me. On the upside, it left me with large quantities of burlap which I used for Vacation Bible School banners, loaned to a friend, etc. I also used the lefover burlap for the rosettes in this wreath.
I cut three inch strips that were about 42 inches long.
Here’s a yardstick posed with the burlap to demonstrate the length of the burlap. If you want smaller rosettes, use less width and length.
There’s You Tube videos and other instructions on how to twist, wrap and glue the burlap to form a rosette. My advice is just to cut your burlap, grab your glue gun and do it. I just twisted and glued occasionally, and the rosette magically appeared. Believe me, if this was hard, I would not have been able to do it.
I made six of them for this project. I like the organic look.
Once you’re satisfied with your rosettes, simply hot glue them to the wreath and add your other embellishments.
I’ve got this on the door of our guesthouse where my friend’s daughter, our bride, will prepare for her wedding. Once the wedding is over, this wreath will reinvent itself again. Here’s some of it’s past lives.
And…
And…
And..
Use what you have! Thank you for reading RiverCliff Cottage.
Today started like an ordinary Saturday. I had cleaning to do, but prior to starting cleaning the kitchen, I caught up on making sugar water for my young hives. It’s always a bit messy to do a 1:1 sugar water for 16 quarts, so I do it before cleaning. If someone looked at my stash, they would think I was making moonshine. Moonshine in Mendota! I’m sure it’s been done.
I don’t mind cleaning. I was listening to music and singing. I cleaned the potrack and I took a picture of it. I can find things in pictures that I can’t see in the room. Potracks are no longer in style, but as my dear mother would say “who the hell cares.”
My potrack adds a certain charm to the kitchen. My look at how orange my natural cherry cabinets look? Must learn how to do better with lighting when taking indoor photographs ! Always so etching to learn.
Oh I do love a clean kitchen even if it appears orange in the pictures!
I get lots of questions about these red and yellow curtains. I’ve got just a little fabric left and when someone asks me about them, I mail them a swatch.
My day was going so well. I was channeling Donna Reed without the high heels, necklace, or hairdo. I decided to go out and pick some basil and do a little flower arrangement. I have lots of basil so I use it as flower filler as well as a herb. This is when it happened. I saw the Japanese Beetles on my basil and my green beans. Look at the damage in the picture below. This was not present yesterday.
I hate them. More damage. Grrrr…
It is no wonder I have so many skunks. The skunks like grubs and before these Japanese beetles were flying, they were slugs in the ground It’s war. Murderous thoughts started in my head. I had motive. I had the bucket, the soapy water, and I had the desire for Beetle Blood. I picked or shook them off into my bucket of sudsy water and watched them drown. Did not even feel a tiny bit bad.
It’s dark at 2:40 am when I am writing this, but if I could see, I’d be out there checking to see if there’s any more. I will drown everyone one.
Chickens love these things. I’ve decided I’m going to get some chickens.
There has been lots of lightening flashes and big booms tonight in Poor Valley. I felt like getting under the bed, but someone was already there.
However, we are grateful for the rain. While Mendota is not as dependent on farming as we once were, we have a large dairy farm, a large cattle farm, a few farmers still growing our Burley tobacco, lots of small family farms, and most everyone has a garden. Many of us are on well water, and we just hate drought! Whew! Simply put, as my friend, Joey Salyer, says during Sunday’s prayer “thank you, Lord, for the rain.”
The rain makes a garden spring to life. This picture was taken on June 10. (This is the great thing about this blog…I can track these things.) Compare the picture below to the next picture.
The picture below was taken a few minutes ago…just ten days after that earlier picture…those Mountaineer Halfrunner Green Beans are on the loose!! Soon I’ll be picking green beans.
I may have planted those green beans too close, but it just doesn’t seem right to put about 16 beans in a raised bed and expect them to fill it up. However, that is the reality.
Yikes…my potatoes got some high wind and rain. They are laying down on the job.
And remember the side garden….it was like this not long ago.
It’s exploded…gone whacko. There’s no rhyme or reason to what’s in there. The only common thread is that I didn’t pay full price for the plants. Some crazy lady stuck them in the dirt and forgot about them planted them. Oh wait..that’s me. And of course, there is my husband’s favorite flower still growing there. The dish. Ugh.
Last night, I fell asleep about 2:00 am. Sometime shortly thereafter, Luckie barked at me. The poor baby was sick. She had terrible diahhrea. I got up and took her outside to see if there was anything left (there was), and then came back in and began cleaning. I had to rely on my nose more than my eyes because I didn’t have my contacts in. It was bad. She and I are exhausted this morning.
She even declined our early morning walk to check on what grows overnight. This is our special time. The birds are so noisy in the early hours. She misses them since she can no longer hear, but I tell her about them with my hands, my mind, my eyes and my heart. She connects.
I’ve grown a lot of succulents this year as they are going to see some wedding action in about a week. The floral designer, Ms. Heidi, knows she can take them all if she needs them.
There was an old weed
That lived in a shoe
That had so many chicks>
She didn’t know what to do.
Those boots belonged to Randy Powers. Randy is my friend, my cousin, a retired Navy man, a musician, a restaurant operator, a father, husband and grandfather, and he’s a pastor. I love him and his boots! What a sweet gift this old pair of boots have been. They’ve been around here for years now. Last year, they got a little fancier. If Heidi uses the succulents in the boots, then I’ll add some flowers again.
This is my “Hello Stranger” tomato. It was given to us by a stranger. We don’t know what it is, but it’s doing well in the five-gallon bucket.
The kindess of a stranger. I hope you receive some kindness from someone today, and better yet, perhaps give some. It’s important.
Thank you for reading RiverCliff Cottage.
I have a lot of quilts, and I make sure they are all used. When I considered the color for the bedroom redo (Bedroom posted here), I wanted to make sure I could use all my quilts. In the summer, a quilt and a sheet is what I like on my bed.
Here’s an old blue and yellow quilt that I put on the bed today. The duvet cover was just to hot for this time of year. The quilt will be much cooler.
Although…I do like the look of the duvet better. It has a puffy softness that beckons me to climb in. Unfortunately, once I got in there this past week, I started to sweat.
This will work much better for a while.
This quilt just came in from the clothesline. I like the faded fabric. It’s hard to find quilts large enough to fit this bed as it’s a California King. Quilts from Pottery Barn always work.
And…the underside of the quilt has a print which makes it nice. Oh whoops…can you see that the old duvet is lying in the floor?
As I’ve been refreshing the Master Bedroom, I’ve been showing off this side…that side…of my redo. I kept one side back because I imagined a white slipcovered chair and ottoman with this pretty throw casually thrown across the chair. I realized today that Luckie has some say so on this.
Luckie: “Mama..that’s not going to happen.” She likes her denim bed…she adores the box fan blowing on her (even though there is both a ceiling fan and air conditioning running most of the time). The chair would get in her pathway. She only tolerates the ottoman which I guess I’ll drag back upstairs.
That’s okay…the room is not perfect but I like it. It’s so much better than it was.
Here’s what it looks like coming into the bedroom, and I promise there are never clothes on the floor. The bed is always made up. The room is always clean. Seriously. I can’t believe how clean it looks.
Here’s another…
I redid the end table…
I had paint left over and Mike fixed me a little thing to hang necklaces off of in the bathroom…this is just an old picture frame.
Up close…
The bedroom will change when Luckie is no longer with us and that won’t be that far off, but for now, it is done. She’s just too precious to upset.
I’ve lost a little weight and I thought I’d post a picture. So proud of myself especially since I ate a whole cabbage today. It had just a little olive oil, water and chicken bouillon, and it was a small cabbage. Before you pass judgement, cooked cabbage really shrinks.
My hair was messy in this picture but oh well. I’ll post another one when I lose five more pounds. I hope it’s soon.
I said earlier in the week that I was not leaving the house on Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday. I lied. Tuesday turned out to be Mexican food night which I could not turn away, and Wednesday was an unexpected trip to Lowe’s for Mike, and I ended up tagging along for only one reason — to check out the half dead plant rack.
As we drove through the Lowe’s parking lot, I tried to peek through the wires and plants to see if many plants were on the rack. I could see a few–but not many. After breathing in the scent of my True Love’s garden center, I hopped out of the truck and dashed back and found a bunch of really sad, dead plants and one good-looking Delphinium for $5. It was the only one on the rack. I was so excited. Have you ever seen a grown, middle-aged woman skip? That was me! I skipped over to checkout! Happy! Happy! Happy! I’ve been watching these plants for a week hoping they’d come down from their $12.98 price.
I started thinking about the likelihood that someone just sat the delphinium on the half dead plant rack versus its really being there on purpose. Yikes! So…when I told the cashier that it was on the $5 rack of the half dead plants, and I wasn’t certain it had actually belonged there, she said “for you, it will be $5 whether it an accident or not.” I could have hugged her! Thank you!! My True Love has the best cashiers! I was so excited!! Here she is riding in the truck on the way home. Mike suggested I put her in the back (as in the truck bed). “ARE YOU CRAZY???” was my response. I held her close all the way home.
Delphinium is commonly called Larkspur, and the blue ones, like this one are symbolic of an open heart and ardent attachment. This is appropriate, as I am ardently attached to this plant. While a $5 plant, it deserves a $15 hole in the dirt and this one got a big loamy place to live surrounded by that great Bristol City Compost.
She looks tiny in her new home, but she has friends. Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) on one side and a common Marigold on the other.
A little further off, there is this tricky Clematis that continues to taunt me. I think I discovered a way to beat the wilt! Yay! Read about that here.
I’m hoping she does well in her new home. Do you love flowers? Do you place your flowers in an order? I subscribe to the method of just sticking them anywhere so long as the light and the soil are right. The rest I leave to chance.
It doesn’t always work out well. Sometimes, however, it does.