First of the Spud Harvest 2012

I am eating it while I type. That and some chicken drenched in “Sweet Baby Ray’s Award Winning barbecue Sauce!”

My potatoes are about the only things I have gotten out of my garden this year, says someone who normally has a very green thumb.  It was more varmints than the drought.  I had so many rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks this year, it was not funny.  It is my own fault because I have a deck, they can hide or live there.  I have lots of shrubs, trees and plants because I want to make my yard as much like nature as the city will let me get away with.  I also have a small fountain, bird bath and keep a small amount of water in a tub for the thirsty squirrels to keep them from climbing into the bird bath.

Found a stone fountain clearanced at Krogers to go with the rock theme of my yard. Always keeping my eyes open for a bargain.

My yard is now semi-private and when I do glance over to some of the other yards near me, I am reminded of a depressed neighborhood.  Some have a couple of plants or place one lone shrub at the far end of the yard.  Most have no landscaping what-so-ever and instead barren, dying grass.  Some of our neighbors have put out perennials in front of their yards with “free flower signs” after dividing, which is so nice.  I will be doing the same next year with hostas if I am still here.  I understand some don’t have the time or the money, but it is not very expensive to buy a few on sale and divide the next year or start them from seed.  I guess you are either a plant person or you are not.  I just love plants of all kinds and they help the environment in many ways.

I started my first garden years ago in the burbs with un-amended hard clay soil.  My plants were great.  I have no idea how some of the seeds ever took root, but they sure did.  The difference was I had no varmints there.  You never even saw one squirrel.  There were woods nearby and obviously the bigger varmints got the little ones before they became a problem.  Once in a while you saw, and smelled a skunk.

This year they got the green beans, both bush and pole, all squash, Spinach didn’t stand a chance, and most of the lettuce.  With some things, such as beets and carrots, either the germination was terrible, or the birds were eating the seeds as well, they got all the black and red raspberries this year.  I just happened to have a couple of left over Russet potatoes that were sprouting at the end of May so I threw them in the garden with the hopes of getting a few potatoes.  They are still there and I hilled them this year.  I will let you know how many I get from both plants in a later post.  The first one was sweet with tender skin and very good.

Hope the rest of you are able to enjoy your harvest this year.  God Bless!

Poetry Inside of Me

I have been writing poetry since I was a child.  I think that this is why I love songs so much.  The best of both worlds.  Poetry and music!  I have always wanted to record some of my music, or maybe get someone else to record it.  As well I do have to get a poetry book out, for the heck of it.  Some days I get up and it just comes pouring out of me.  I am a natural writer, and do write a lot.  I can’t figure why I procrastinate when it comes to any of my blogs.  This one just squirted out so I decided to post it right away.  I used to be paranoid about someone stealing my ideas even though I know the artist automatically retains the rights to his creations.  Now with these blogs, it automatically puts the date of when you publish your work publicly so as to remove any doubt of who the original creator is should someone try to take a song or poem that you wrote.  I used to send everything to the be copyrighted and that got expensive.

GET IT

We are here:
to live & learn, to laugh & cry
to love & hate to suffer & die.
Our life, of course, is not a test
to see if we can be the best.
But gives our God the way to heal
to hug someone, to make a meal.
We’re who we are, I don’t know why
that some are mean and other’s shy.
Make no mistake, that person’s nod
is really from the living God.
So any cruelty on a whim
is being done direct to Him.

Po’ Girl Shines © 2012

Mouse Finger Puppets For a Rainy Day!

You can look up mouse finger puppets on the instructables.com website for further instructions.  I made these years ago when my children were young.  Found one packed away and thought to put the instructions online so others could enjoy it with their kids.  Meanwhile enjoy the lame puppet show (warning, contains graphic subject matter of one of the mouse puppets losing an eye in battle!).

McCourtie Park, More Than Meets The Eye under Daily Prompt: Ghost

I took another way home from Hidden Lake Gardens in Tipton Michigan because I wanted to swing by Meckleys Flavor Fruit Farm which is packed with cider donuts and cider and everything else you can imagine. I think of it as a cider mill, but there is a petting zoo, gift shop and other things to see and do besides roasting hot dogs on sticks over fire pits.

Upon leaving I noticed the cutest bridge to my right as I drove back down S Jackson Rd to US12 from the farm.  I have been in this area before and had never noticed Bridge Park, or McCourtie Park it’s actual name.  It was created from what was left of “Aiden Lair,” the nickname of the estate owned by wealthy oil and cement tycoon William H L McCourtie.  The home itself no longer stands but the bridgework was renovated and turned into a park located on the NW corner of US12 just after S Jackson Rd in Somerset Center Michigan.


I am only now working with my fall pictures because I was not impressed by them earlier.  I had walked through the park quickly taking a few pictures of the rustic looking bridges all over, and evidently did not even see all of it.  I decided to use the internet to research these types of bridges in that area of the state for more information and found more than I was looking for regarding McCourtie park.

Two mexican artisans were commissioned to create 17 bridges as well as some other features such as 2 rather large artificial tree trunks coming from the ground that actually hid chimneys coming from a subterranean rathskeller where local big shots and elite would come and party and gamble the night away back in the 1930s. Henry Ford was supposedly among the regulars. This was during prohibition and there were rumors that the chimneys were deliberately designed this way as to blend in with nature and the surrounding trees so as to hide this supposed speakeasy. It is said there were underground tunnels from here that allowed for bootlegging and that it could have been part of the underground railroad.

Supposedly George Cardozo and Ralph Corona came from Texas to create the bridges sculpted of concrete to look like logs and other things such as rope or boards and braced with steel rods for support. They were designed in the El Trabijo Rustico design in the Mexican Folk Tradition. I think that I only saw about 7 or 8 of the bridges so I plan on going back later this fall to really explore and get more pictures of the bridges and the rathskeller. All the Michigan ghost sites claim that this park is also haunted by the lady in blue but it did not feel haunted to me. I think someone was drinking some of that leftover moonshine!

Blessed Rain

There was a storm last week and it was so great!  It was not bad in my area and we really needed the rain desperately.  I am still doing a rain dance in my head for the rest of America so the drought will go away.  Our economy is bad enough without the farmers having to share in this misery.  It is very scary to think that if this were to keep up and we really did not have enough rain soon that it will adversely effect all the food that is grown and that in turn effects everything!  The least of which is the cost of what food we do have going up, the most is more people actually starving.  I have not been able to grow any sustainable food in my garden this year, even with additional careful watering.  The animals are ravenous and even with my bird baths, the birds got every berry off my shrubs this year.  This has never happened even with my yard full of birds every year.  I went out once to check for ripeness and you should have heard the commotion.  First a few of them gathered squawking, then more kept flying over by me griping loudly.  I swear they were afraid I was going to pick some and I would have if any had been ripe at the time.

2012 Ann Arbor Art Fair

Please enjoy the slide show from the 2012 Ann Arbor Art Fair I attended 07/20/2012.  I included my lunch as well as the best wall art I have ever experienced, so far!

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I have not included any actual art out of respect for the artists copyright.

Bunny Rabbit Blues

There used to be a song titled “Bunny Rabbit Blues” that our preschoolers danced to.  This bunny rabbit blues is different.  I stuck up a make-shift gate of chicken-wire to try and keep the baby bunny out of my garden, but it just burrows under anyway.  I keep watering once in a while, but with this drought, I am about to give up seeing as I am only feeding the wildlife in the area.

Took a bad video of one that got caught in the act and was trying to get out.  Usually it lets me lift up the fence so it can run away, but this time it ran out the other side using the hole it burrowed.

Music by a local Detroit Group called Mudpuppy entitled “Funky Stuff.”

Peace, Love, Hope Garden Cap Instructables Entry

I submitted an entry for Instructables Fashion contest.  The first prize was a sewing machine that also embroiders.  Didn’t win but at least I tried!

I have put together some photos in a slideshow to kind of walk you through how to make the hat from a pair of old jeans.  I created a pattern from an old cap I still had, took it apart and made the templates from parchment paper and lined it with tea stained muslin.  The jean fabric was rather heavy so the cap is too warm to wear in the sun on a warm day.  I would recommend that you try the same thing with a cotton broadcloth or poplin and leave it unlined.  I went kinda krazy decorating it, but you can just leave it plain or use any fabric of your choice.  Please feel free to check out the patterns as I have written the size of the templates on the pattern so you can copy them to use.

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