Neglected

Neglected, that's how a lot of things have gotten over this summer.  My garden being one and my blog has been getting more and more neglected too.
Family things going on, as well as kid activities have given me very little time to be out and take care of the garden.  What free time I've had has been spent on watering.  It has been an unusually dry and warm summer.  I'm not complaining and neither are the tomatoes though!
I thought I would give the blog a little attention today with some of what the garden looks like right now.  Luckily weeds are smaller than the plants, although there are many, many of them.  There are wilted things and crispy things, but luckily for the most part neglect hasn't bothered the garden too much.

 The pond was refilled yesterday so it looks nice right now.

 With the pine tree now gone the plants in the garden and on the deck have gone crazy!

 The arbor has filled out more, with three different types of Clematis and a climbing rose it should be!

 Lots more sunny perennials have been added to the backyard.  They have attracted more bees, butterflies and birds than ever.

 A new Aster.

 The sun is very bright which makes the colors very washed out, but believe me there is a lot of bright color.

 With full sun here now the window boxes are overflowing.

 Lots more sun has made everything explode (and I also credit all the chicken manure from the coop that I spread here last fall).

 Sadly the neglect and lack of water has caused my Flowering Currant to completely dry up.  It didn't seem to matter how much I tried to water, it's still crisp.  I do think I see a bit of green though where new leaves might be trying to grow.

 The blueberries, raspberries and figs are having a very productive summer.  They have really been neglected and luckily don't need too much water.

The chickens are doing great.  You can see the three new ones here that we got as chicks in April.  They all three are laying eggs now.

                           

 Containers on the back deck.

 There's a wagon under those flowers!

 We've seen so many more butterflies than usual this summer.

 Lots of pears getting ready to be picked.

 One of the raised vegetable beds.  We've had tomatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, garlic, chard and Kale already.

Spinach, squash, basil, blueberries and even eggplants!

 Lots of color!

 From the street.

The driveway bed.  It has gotten actually more attention than usual because it's getting some water.  I get very lazy dragging hoses around even in an uneventful summer, but this year I'm making sure that this part doesn't get ignored.

 This baby wren is from mid-July.  It's the first time we've ever seen the babies leave their next.  We had several birdhouses that hosted not one, but two different families this year which is very unusual.

Maybe once the girls start school in September the blog won't be so neglected?  Maybe I'll have more time to spend in the garden?  Well, one thing I've learned this summer is that the garden will go on despite the neglect it's gotten which has been something that makes me happy.  Nothing like a tough day when I can still look out the window and see flowers and birds and butterflies still going on without any help from me.  Another gift from the garden.  It doesn't need me, I need it.

All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.

The coop is done!

Our original plan was to build our own chicken coop from scratch.  We had gotten plans and started making lists of supplies, it was adding up to be a lot of time and money.  My sister, who also had bought chicks the same day we did, found an ad on Craig's List for coops.  After both of us talking to the man that builds them we decided it was worth it to just buy one that he built, and bring it home to put together.
My husband and I rented a truck to drive the hour plus drive down south to the town where we would pick the coops up.  The small town of Orting is on a river and pretty rural.  If I wasn't so worried about the directions I would've taken pictures.  We passed lots of farms and ranches, saw just about every type of farm animal and made it where we needed to go.  The man (Donald) that builds them and his brother helped my husband load both our coop and my sister's in sections onto the truck and off we left to go home.  Then we got lost, in a rental truck (with the fuel light warning on), with no phone service.  It all kind of looked the same and we weren't sure if we had passed a part of the river or piece of land or not until we finally came to a crossroads and realized we had gone the wrong way.  Luckily I wasn't fired from my co-piloting job and we eventually made it back home.

 A few weeks ago Sweet Pea helped me get this part of the side yard ready for the coop.  I was so glad we already had that part done.  The coop itself was easy to assemble, it was the leveling of the ground and putting the coop up on the 4x4 frame that was hard.

 I was too busy helping to get any pictures during the assembly part.  I was up on the roof and assembled almost all of that balancing on top.  Here there are smiles because the worst part is done!

 My husband making a few adjustments to the door.  If you notice the lock on the top is locked, we took turns locking each other in as a "surprise".  It also has a lock on the inside which I said may be where I go to hide from everyone and they can't come in to bother me. ☺

 I think it looks really pretty unpainted, but we wanted to add some color to make it fun.

 We decided on Barn red.  We first primed the wood, then it took two coats of paint.  Luckily the temperatures were in the 70's all weekend.

 Here it is all finished!  Our neighbor was happy to hear we were going to have chickens because she said she grew up on a farm.  We promised her eggs.

 And from the other side.

 The Littlest Gardener thought the chickens needed a little decoration above their door.

 On the side there is a window that opens for ventilation.

 The whole side can come down too for easy cleaning.

 The nesting box door.  The coop was designed really well and we're really happy with it.  If anyone is interested in getting the information for Donald, who built this, just email me.  He builds other sizes of coops as well as a really cool rabbit hutch that we eventually plan to get.  Once I get the run set up I will put the chicks out there on warm days so they have more space.  They are quickly growing!

 And since this is a garden blog I thought I would share a couple of new blooms today.  First are the apple blossoms.  We have a 4 way (used to be 5) grafted apple tree, all but one graft have blooms.

 And the first of the columbines!!

And I had to share this beautiful picture that Sweet Pea took while we were up in Skagit Valley for the Tulip festival.  If we would've spent the week building the coop we never would've gotten to see the tulips!

There are so many flowers starting to bloom that I promise the next post will be just garden pictures!

All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.