Has Oz Girl Disappeared???

Not really.  It's just that time of year... summertime!  Seems there is so much to get done everyday, and not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything.  Add to that my new job, and life is pretty danged hectic!  

So here's an update, along with some lovely Kansas photos you might enjoy.

The garden... yes, we finally got one started!
Thanks and kudos go to the hubby, not I.
Corn on the far left (first row battered by a storm), 
then there's the new row of corn sprouting,
then cukes, beans, and radishes.

Woohoo!  Our first tomatoes.
We also have pepper plants, hard to see in this photo.

Hubby used nothing more than a shovel to turn over this hard, compacted piece of land.  Then a few months later he borrowed a tiller from someone at work, and rototilled what he had turned with the shovel.  He helped me plant the tomatoes and peppers, but thanks go to him for planting all the seeds and keeping it all watered on a daily basis.  I was watering at first, but the mosquitoes have been really bad this year, and I'm their feast every single time I venture outside (it's quite frustrating!!)  For some reason, they don't enjoy nibbling on him.  Lucky me, huh?

Our first radishes... I put one on hubby's salad last night.
He said they had quite a bit of heat!

Purple Fountain Grass we planted on the east side of the drive.
They are flourishing and I'm hoping they reach their
full potential next year... 4 to 5 feet!


The back porch.

By the old garage ... antique cream separator with flowers.

The outhouse, with coleus and ivy in the flowerbox.

My clean car.  Ok, ok...so it's not a beautiful rural photo.
But do you know how often I have a clean car??!!
It will be dirty again tomorrow once I drive the
3 miles down our gravel road to the main road.

Coneflower, coreopsis and dwarf zinnias.

Last night's sunset.



Yeah, I still like it here in Kansas.... except for these danged mosquitoes!!!
I'm sporting a bunch of new bites just to get these photos!

Update on the purple fountain grass:  This plant is only hardy to zone 9.  So we won't be seeing it return next spring.  This makes me sad.  I guess it's my bad for not paying more attention to the plant info tag.

25 comments:

  1. You're so funny! And I'm jealous of your vegetable garden, and your potted flowers, and your fountain grass, and your clean car! That's quite the nice place you've got there, girl...despite the mosquitos!

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  2. Awesome, Susan, I am so happy that you have a veggie garden now. I am still planting, every few nights I plant a row of some sort of seed. Mostly lettuce as I love going out and picking my salad! My biggest issue is that our kitties think my big raised boxes with nice loamy soil make a perfect litter box YUK! Now you still need a flock of girls. I get my 3 eggs a day and just love that they cluck when they see me! And for the clean car - Emmy is at a new ranch that is 2 mi down a dirt/gravel road - I know it drives R nuts as the tires are now always a shade of sienna, but he resists the urge to say anything as moving my girl was a HUGE sacrifice for me! :-)

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  3. Tomatoes already? And purple fountain grass that lives through the winter?

    Toto, I don't think that we are in Kansas anymore....

    Oh, and we just figured that you being a new grandma were rather smitten, and too busy to blog.

    Jen

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  4. You have a lot of cute spots in your yard. It is very hard to do much more than yard work this time of year.

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  5. Hey look at that nice garden you have. We were pleasantly surprised to see our garden had survived our 2 week vacation. It must have rained plenty at home while we were gone.

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  6. Looks like Minnesota --- beautiful flowers, awesome sunsets and those horrible pests the mosquitoes.... I love the purple fountain grass - will that grow this far north?

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  7. Thank you for braving the mosquitoes, the photos are well worth it. Your garden is lovely - I am envious! One day, I will have more space though.

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  8. Do you use a scented soap or lotion? Sometimes that attracks the skeeters. I got my garden in late too. Can't wait for the fresh veggies! :)

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  9. Hey I was only thinking I hadn't seen you in my reader for a while. Love the veggies -just my thing and I'm also thinking that the purple fountain grass is an Australian plant? Hard to think of you guys in summer when I was ankle deep in frost this morning!

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  10. Oh that antique cream separator is awesome!!! I'm am so jealous over your garden!! I never got mine planted this year!

    The mosquito's in southern KS this year are insane!! I thought surely we had enough frozen ground to kill some of them off!

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  11. You've been a busy lady! Love all the photos. A clean car - what a luxury. And only one who lives in the country truly understands that statement. :)

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  12. You have been busy. I'm loving your potted flowers and the garden looks great. We finally got some rain this week so we will be fighting mosquitoes too. Take care!

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  13. Your photos are beautiful again, especially the sunset ones. But your flowers look lovely. And your garden looks good. My beans have a hard time. Being attacked by snails and slugs (who ignore the pellets I've used against them) and for some reason the leaves look a bit yellowish. Hmm, I guess they need some sort of nutrient, but what?
    Nice clean car!

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  14. GREAT Photo's!!!
    Our garden is doing pretty good. The rabbits ate the first sign of beans sprouting! I guess they gotta eat too!!
    Take care

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  15. Your garden looks wonderful. I like the different areas you have decorated outside, nice and homey and friendly.

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  16. Good to see you're alive and well! I know what you mean about this time of year. Jobs just get in the way of the fun stuff.. like gardening. Yours looks fabulous by the way. Did you find purple fountain grass that is perennial? I've been looking, and to no avail. I love it! But it must be tough enough to withstand our winters here. Don't work too hard, and beware of those skeeters! -Tammy

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  17. Hi Suz! Just wanted to let you know that I'm back from my travels so will now go back to being a 'fixture and fitting' on your blog :D Looking forward to catching up on what you've been up to! x

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  18. Well, I'll be a dummy. I usually know my plants, so I'm shocked to see that upon closer inspection of the info tags from my purple fountain grasses, they are only hardy to zone 9. Guess I won't be seeing ours return next spring. I just assumed since they were with the other perennial grasses that they were, well, perennials. :-(

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  19. gosh i am jealous, i have done some veggie gardening myself but not to your extreme, i planted them in LARGE flower pots on the deck as so the deer and other critters wont eat befor we do, liking the purple fountain grasses, GRANDMA, i am not sure if they will grow here but that was my choice also, some say only in the south, hmmmm!! hope all is well, seems like it, oh yeah the radishes are a strange taste i have to say also.

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  20. Beautiful pictures! That is too bad the purple fountain grass won't be back, it is rather interesting and pretty beside the drive like that.

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  21. ...and how is Oz Girl's cute little cat doing?
    ;-)

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  22. You and I live such similar lives it's uncanny. 'Cept my garden doesn't look anywhere that good because we has SEVERAL storms and floods. :-(

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  23. Great Photos..beautiful sunsets! I have a grass up here that would love it there. We call it Marge Grass after the gal we got it from..I have it growing on a hill far from the gardens..LOL
    Big Bluestem may be an option for you..it is beautiful in the fall:)

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  24. Loved the flowers on the side of the old garage, not to mention the KS sunsets! Thanks for sharing!

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