Wood Ducks, Gardening and Spinning for T

    I was not going to hook up with T 'til the 10th anniversary, but since I am caught up a bit with outdoor work for now and  that we are back to the high 90's F  again I will have time to visit.

   We had a few days of much cooler weather-finally-but still not a drop of rain. The grass is all burnt up here except for what splashes on from the lake.  Good thing though is no mowing for me smiles.

   Find link up for T with Bleubeard and Elizabeth in my side panel, you are welcome to join in just post a drink related photo.

  Today and Yesterday, I raked out the smaller stones and added 8 large bags of garden soil to part of the area. I will need to add more for sure but at least I got these bags on the ground. I collect my zinnia, marigold, and other seeds so I spread a bunch over this area-to keep weeds from growing and the butterflies will love the flowers too. It is way too hot, and with no rain, not a good idea to be transplanting perennials to this area right now.

  By the front door are the steps to the top-and then to either side is the rock wall with a curved area on both sides. I have a bird bath on the other side, so I added this large metal leaf for drinking water to this left side that we are working on. The rock came from the woods property I am thinking this is a drink reference as the butterflies and little birds love this for a drink of water.

Larry has been scraping off the dead grass with his skid steer on the left side of this area-we will be placing landscape fabric and adding stone to that area very soon.

   Doing that he found this large heart rock-so I brought it up to this corner area At the woods home, some of you may remember my rock shower project-sadly we never got to use that, but in the process of gathering rocks I found many many small and medium size heart rocks-never one this large-I love it.

The bags of soil were so heavy that I worked from both ends-ran out there in the middle-oh well, I need lots more soil before fall. I need Larry to decide about that hill in the back area-would need allot of garden soil added to level a bit. To the right is the pallet of brick for the outdoor cooking area.

We learned that our duck visitors are a family of wood ducks, that have been breeding in the area for many years-according to one of our neighbors. The hen discovered our bird seed early mornings and sometimes her youngsters come too. She had 6 survivors out of 10 or 12 little ones.

     I am realizing I spin better with less processed wools. I have found a couple sellers on Etsy that I really love, including the Icelandic wool. I was inspired to search out this wool from Erika's Iceland trip, learning that many of the sheep are not penned in-love that.  It spins like a dream I love it, feel like I know what I am doing even haha. I had bought a variegated roving with black, white and dark grey.

  Ready to spin

  This is very soft yarn, I am in love with this one-and ordered a little bit more of this one and the dark grey.

     I am still spinning thick and thin but it is not over spun which is a good thing. I love the textures of that in weaving. I am still spinning singles opposed to a finer yarn that is then plied together with two or three-right now I don't need to strive for that as I am not a knitter or do crochet-weaving is more forgiving I think depending on the garment being made.

    We have been enjoying root beer floats during these hot humid days. I shared one in my last post but I did make us another one last night.

   I make them with my own homemade vanilla ice cream-yum summer for me is a root beer float.

  This is a photo of me layering the ice cream and the root beer.

Happy T

T Stands for Tuesday-Photos

   Joining T over at Bleubeard and Elizabeath's-just share a drink related photo to join in, link in my sidebar.

   I am sharing a few photos this week.

 Some  of you may remember from last year a visit from  the "deck duck"  I had just been wondering if she/he would visit us again and the duck arrived the next day. Larry thinks this is the same duck just more mature.

   This was taken early morning, full sun with steam from the lake. We are dropping into the low 50's and high 40's F at night for several days now. By 11 am it warms up to the high 70's and low 80's F during the day so really perfect weather for this long weekend.

 

 Friday I baked up yellow angel food cakes for the both of us to go with the lovely fresh strawberries and blackberries I had picked up at the grocery store. They came out so good even the gluten free version. 

     The first photo is the wheat cake and the second is the gluten free version. I had extra egg whites after separating the eggs so added them to the gluten free cake-gave it the extra volume it needed.

   These rose so much this time I had a bit of difficulty getting them out of the pans.

Gluten free cake below. I froze most of mine in single servings, as gf baked goods will dry out faster than the wheat cakes do.

 Of course the lake was totally bonkers with many many  boats of all sizes. I am writing this up early Sunday evening and the lake is still full of boats going every which way.  I only got a couple photos, as I pretty much "hid" in the house with all the commotion. lol  I did get to enjoy fireworks from the neighbors Saturday evening. Am hoping the one straight across from us will display more fireworks again tonight-he is a professional so the show is amazing. I have such an amazing indoor view of his fireworks show.

This photo below is taken looking to the right of the deck-where the lake really opens up for a bit and where lots of boats come in at. It is fun to see all the different types of boats-all sizes and some very very expensive ones too.

   We had friends that came up to go fishing for a bit Sunday morning off our dock-In a couple hours they caught a large bucket full of crappie, bass, and catfish-good eats. The grandfather lives in Colorado and he loves to fish when he visits his family (our friends)

   I forgot to take photos but I did finish up the limincello recipe on Wednesday. I divided it into two gallon water bottles and stored them in the freezer. Each bottle was about half full-for expansion. Will be better tasting in another month or so.

  For my drink share-a cup of white tea that I had picked up at the Amish food store

and I will close  with this surprise-This really nice bird feeder was gifted to us by our lake friends for Christmas. Told us it was squirrel proof. I had to laugh at that because I have yet to find a bird feeder that is squirrel proof or raccoon proof.  Over this busy weekend-the new squirrel youngsters have been a handful, that I have had to bring in the seed feeders so they don't destroy them Sometimes there 6-8 youngsters eating all the bird seed.

  Yep this squirrel managed to get through the cage area that is suppose to protect the seed feeder. I don't think an adult squirrel could get in though.

Happy T and new week

Surprise Visitor on the Deck

   We are always fighting off the squirrels early mornings as they want to eat all of the bird's food that we throw out on the deck and on the railing

   A surprise visitor the other day, still coming every morning Never know what we will see out our wall of windows haha