Taking Advantage of Good Weather

So far this weekend’s weather has been nothing short of fantastic. We had temperatures in the lower 70’s and part sun most of the day so of course I had to get outside for a little while.

The plan on Saturday was to go to the home improvement store and get some interior wood stain to complete our patio doors. We wanted a nice Pecan color stain to cover the wood sections on the inside. As it turns out the stain we wanted has to be special ordered and the worker at the home improvement store took 30 minutes to figure out that the person who had the “codes” to order it wouldn’t be in until Monday. It was frustrating, you would think that on a Saturday of all days (being one of the busiest days of the week for home improvement stores) they would have had someone who could have helped us.

We ended up going home nearly empty handed with only a few supplies for the project. I’ll have to go back to the store and find the right person to talk to later in the week. After a quick lunch I headed out to the yard with the kids. While they played on the swingset and the sandbox here’s what I did:

• Checked under the house for leaks, bugs, and anything else that was out of place. It’s a good idea to do that from time to time.
• Disconnected any hoses and lined them up on our front yard slope to drain out overnight.
• Rolled up and placed a couple hoses under the house to store over the winter. 
• Took a few pictures around the yard – I’ll be using them in posts later in the week.
• Got the push mower with the bag attachment out and mowed the lawn until the gas ran out.
• I put the gathered clippings into a garden bed as the bottom layer of mulch.
• I spread out red clover seed in various spots for overseeding. I’m late on this and should have done it a month ago. Hopefully we’ll get enough germination for the cover crop to be effective. 
• Lastly at dusk I flooded the ground hole of a nest of yellow jackets. I don’t know the best way to remove them but since they weren’t flying around after dusk I knew that was the best time to do something to the nest. I’ll check sometime tomorrow to see if there is any activity and find another way to get rid of them if I need to!

Additional Weekend Garden thoughts:

• While out shopping on Sunday we spotting some cherry trees outside of one of the malls. It was loaded with cherries (I’ll admit it, I swiped two for seed planting) but the unusual thing was it also had two or three blooms! 
• Also I found $0.99 Hyssop at one of the box store sales. Hummingbird magnet and deer resistant means perfect for my garden!
• Also since this week is Thanksgiving I’ll be posting the Fall color project post on Wednesday so that I can spend the holiday with family and not online – at least not much anyway!