Unique Planters

I really like different unique planters. This big ceramic shoe planter is one of my favorites. I keep it in my kitchen filled with (gasp!) artificial flowers.

I am still not getting email notifications on most of the comments. It is very strange. I seem to always get them from Girl Gone Gardening and Alice, but not from anyone else. Even when I reply, I do not get the email.

So if anyone has commented on an older post and I have not replied, it is because I did not see the comment. I contacted Blogger Help, but they were not much help. They said it may be a spam blocker, but I don't believe I have a spam blocker.

Is there any guru out there who may have a clue as to why this is happening?

Friday Night Dinner

I was not in the mood to cook. I rarely am on Friday nights. I also did not want to go out to eat. When I get home on Friday night, I just want to stay home. So we ordered a Pizza Hut Pepperoni Lover's pizza. Quite good and no dishes to do. I won't have to cook dinner tonight either as we have a wedding to go to. I do have a bunch of bananas I bought last week and did not eat. I may make a banana cake today to use them up.

Trip to the Apple Farm

A quaint country shop after a beautiful fall drive








Ahhhhh, the joys of Autumn...
I am not a very accomplished pie maker, but I must say, I am quite proud of how these turned out.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Today at work I had to have a man arrested for “defrauding an innkeeper”.

Yes, if you don’t pay your hotel bill, there really is a law that will get you some alternate lodging at a pretty low price. LOL

This man checked in on Sunday night and paid cash for one night. On Monday he did not check out by noon, so we called him to see what his intentions were. He said he would be out soon. He was called at least three times and finally he said he would be out at 3pm or he would come down and pay for another night. I left assuming he had checked out.

Today when the housekeeper came on duty she went to clean his room and was surprised to find that he was still there.

The front desk rep called him AGAIN to see what was up. He said he would be down to pay in a few minutes.

Forty-five minutes later, he still had not come down, so I called him.

He told me he did not have any money. I asked for a credit card. He gave me a credut card number. It was declined (no surprise to me). I called him back and told him I was calling law enforcement to evict him. He asked if he could take a shower first.
Expecting him to bolt before the law officers arrived, I and our Chief Engineer went to stand guard outside his room. True to his word, he was in the shower! (we could hear the water running)

The two officers arrived quickly and we knocked on the door. He let us in and was standing with a small towel wrapped around his lower body, water dripping profusely down his body and on to the carpet.

Awww geez, WHY ME?

I had to stand within two feet of this nearly-naked man while he was being questioned for at least 30 minutes. I thought for sure that towel would drop to the floor. I tried to keep my eyes downward as I was not too excited about seeing all he had to offer. It was bad enough having to stare at those gnarly wet hairy toes!

The officers thought the man was very suspicious (none of his identifications checked out, etc.) He said he was having money wired this afternoon (the same thing he told us yesterday). They asked him why he stayed another night knowing he could not pay his bill. He had no answer. They ended up handcuffing him and escorting him to the city slammer.

This is the second time I have had to have a customer hauled off in the past three months (the last one was beating up his mother. He had just been released from the mental unit at the local hospital).

I really do not like having to do this sort of thing. I find it quite disturbing.

Changing Profile Picture

I am already quite sick of seeing my profile picture, so I decided to change it. It was much more time consuming than I expected. I had, of course, forgotten how to do it. I had to search Blogger for the directions. I believe I finally got it changed. I think I will change it frequently just for the sake of change.

Do you see the Swans?

My little town has a 13 mile paved walking/biking trail system that links the downtown area, the waterfront area, fairgrounds, our Island Park area, and the wildlife sanctuary. It is really a first rate trail and I enjoy walking it. The Island Park is an actual small island with no inhabitants (other than wildlife). It makes for a very pleasant walk and on a lucky day you will see a few swan families peacefully floating along the river. If you look very closely (or click the picture to make it bigger) you can see some swans in this picture.


Another part of the island

















A part of the walking trail about a mile from the island
My town is right on the shores of Lake Huron, so we have water everywhere!















We often take for granted the amenities our own city has to offer. When I look at these pictures, I realize what a great resource our walking/biking trail is. I like this shot looking through the trees to one of the main streets. I am only a short distance away from all the noise and car pollution, yet it feels like I am way out in the peaceful wilderness.

Manicure/Pedicure

Every once in a while I like to do something a little different with my nails. This is especially bright and cheerful, don't you think? LOL

Time to Bring out those Fall Decorations

The Beginning of the Rockwall

I am still working on transferring all of my picture files from floppies to CD's. I came across this old picture from 1990 when I was making the rockwall garden. As you can see there is no rockwall yet, just some big boulders which have remainder in the exact spot I found them.



















Here it is today taken from almost the same spot

Beautiful October Weather

Nearly 80 degrees today and I spent the day dumping more plants. It is supposed to be nice and warm all week. This is very unusual October weather in Northern Michigan. As I am dumping perfectly nice plants from their summer home, I just couldn't toss them onto the compost heap. I decided to take them from their pots and just plop them someplace in the rock garden where I can still enjoy them for a week or two. I just set them on top of the ground behind boulders, etc. They have grown an extensive root system so the soil just stays in place even without the pots.

So for the next couple of weeks I have new things to look at...and you all know how much I like change!

Fall Tablescape

This morning I decided to set my dining room table for fall. I started with a neutral color tablecloth and my silver charger plates.
Then I added a dinner plate and my fall-leaf salad plates and glasses.









I decided on a green-checked napkin. I usually like the napkins put into the glass for added height and color. But I did not want to hide the fall pattern on these glasses so I had to come up with another solution. I couldn't lay them across the plate as that would hide the leaf on the salad plate. Finally I decided to fold them into a fleur de lis and set them to the left front of the plates.

Looks very complicated, but is actually quite easy to do.






I added fall leaves to the chandelier and little "welcome" sign for fall.


For the centerpiece I used a big bowl of apples and a scarecrow. I added some leaf-shaped candles to the side of each place setting and some more candles on opposite ends of the table. I will probably make a floral centerpiece later today as I plan to use the apples to make apple crisp.







Here is the completed table.

You are all so Kind

I just sat down at the 'puter after cooking and cleaning for the past three hours.

While reading your comments, I had to chuckle over the comments on the houseplants post about how neat and tidy everything looks. I was just berating myself for not keeping up with my cleaning chores - every place I look has dust (especially that entertainment center in the family room), I just finished getting rid of a cobweb near the floor by the curio cabinet, the kitchen desk is piled high with cooking magazines and the floors need scrubbing.

Then I come here and read these sweet comments. It made me feel so much better.

All I can say is I am glad I did not take a macro shot of any of the flat surfaces!

Fall CleanUp

I thought today I would post about how I do my fall cleanup for any new container gardener who may be wondering what should be done. It is important to store your containers as clean as you possibly can to prevent bacteria from causing undue problems next year. I dump everything out, use the hose to spray off all the clinging dirt, then swish them through a solution of bleach and water to kill the germs. It is much easier to do if you have a big container to fill with the water and bleach (I just dump about a cup full of bleach in the big container below.) Sometimes I also put some dish soap in, but not always. A long handled brush (like a toilet brush) works great. I then toss them around the yard in the sun to dry completely before stacking them for winter storage.

This is the ideal way to clean them all--but, let's get serious, it doesn't always happen. I rarely get them all done in one day. More often than not the last few containers do not get the bleach treatment because I am in a hurry to get them done. I just brush the snow off (almost every year some of them get snowed on), spray them out with the hose and that's it. The truth is I have never had any problems with fungus or disease when using the bleachless containers. I always read that one should do it, so I still do -- at least during the initial cleanup.

Sedumn Autumn Joy Darkens

The Sedumn Autumn Joy has turned its dark rich color. A lot of my SAJ in the rock wall garden was trampled by falling/dragging tree branches when the tree company removed the pines. It is pretty tough, so I feel confidant it will come back just as strong next year. Notice that these SAJ's are different hues of red/pink. They look different in each garden, depending on the amount of sun.

Houseplants Multiply

Until today, I had very few house plants (two Christmas cactus to be exact).

Now I have nine.

I just could not toss the seven large hanging baskets of wandering jew, so I brought them inside. They were huge, so I cut them way back and placed them on top of various cabinets in the living room and family room. I have five of them in the living room.

I have never had much luck with indoor plants, but these seem very easy to grow with a low light requirement. I just hope they don't start turning brown and dropping leaves all of the floor. If they do, they will be tossed for sure.

The Trees Are Gone

I can finally see the big old Maple Tree!


Here is the before picture in case you can't remember how UGLY it was

Miniature Asters

I purchased these miniature asters from Breck's years ago. They probably should have been pinched back a few times to maintain a neat little mound. I will have to remember that for next year. (how many times have we all said that?)

It Sure Isn't Pretty....

The dreaded fall dumping has begun. What a mess! We have not had a frost yet, so things still look decent, but it will happen any day now. I need to get started since I have so much to do and I want it done before it gets too cold outside.
Since I always show you the pictures when things are nice and tidy, I thought I would show you how things look when the real work begins.

The Weekend Went By Too Fast

The Murder Mystery weekend was so much fun. It was held in the banquet room of a casino, so there was always something to keep us busy. The mystery dinner was not exactly as I had imagined. We knew from the start who the actors were. The premise was that we were all attending the memorial dinner of a deceased Texas oil tycoon. The reading of the will took place at the dinner.
Here is the room all set for us to enter:


Of course the oil tycoon had a "companion", Dee Dee DeLay (don't you love the play on that last name?)

Dee Dee is, of course, the buxom brunette. Let me tell you, Dee Dee was quite a hit with the gentlemen...especially, Ed, our new Canadian friend, who got not one, but two kisses from Dee Dee. I doubt that he will ever wash his cheek again.


During dinner, someone got killed. Guess who? You got it. Poor sweet DeeDee drank poisoned cough syrup and keeled over right before our eyes.


Other characters were introduced thoroughout the evening--lawyer, detective, very religous step-daughter, crochety old brother.


We had to determine who the murderer was. Each table was a team.Each team was allowed to ask one question of any character they chose to help them make a decision. If your table won, you would each get $100.

We did not win. Darn! I could have used that $100.

The meal was half a baked chicken, rice, mixed veggies, salad and dessert. It was good --not great--just good. LOL.

Note the fresh flower garnish.