Friday, July 6, 2012

Catching Up With the Bag Lady

Hello? Anyone there? (is there an echo in here?)

The Bag Lady has been really busy since she posted last, but the museum is finally open (and she has almost recovered from her state of near total collapse from exhaustion.)

She has been playing catch up with yard work and house work and all those fun summer things. Luckily, the Rancher stepped up and took care of the garden, tilling and hilling potatoes, and mowing the lawn. The Bag Lady was so busy, she didn't even have time to stroll though the local greenhouses to buy bedding plants, which is one of her most favourite activities! Consequently, she has only one tomato plant - a Cherokee Purple that she bought at Costco.

She has added trees to her yard. She purchased trees from the shelterbelt program (exactly what it sounds like - trees to plant as  a windbreak) and so far, most of them seem to be surviving. Someday, she may be able to harvest some berries from them. Chokecherries, Nanking Cherries and Sea Buckthorn. All will make good jelly. And the birds like them, too.

A neighbour brought her some lilac bushes, too! She's had a lovely time landscaping and deciding where to put things. These are purple lilacs - the neighbour promised some white ones, too, when she digs up the ones that have suckered into another of her flowerbeds. The Bag Lady saved a spot for those! In a few years, if all goes well, her fire pit in the back yard will be surrounded by lilac bushes.

This has apparently been a perfect year for strawberries! The Bag Lady planted a couple of strawberry plants in her flower bed many years ago, and over the years, they have reproduced and spread a little. But she has never seen as many runners as there are this year! Upon closer inspection, some of the plants appear to be wild strawberries (which are teensy tiny, but packed with flavour!) and the runners from those plants are, well, running wild!
 So, that pretty much catches you up with what the Bag Lady has been doing. She'll leave you with a  few pictures from a little country rodeo she attended last weekend.....

AAAAAND...... THERE'S THE HORN AND THEY'RE OFF!




And yes, the young woman driving this wagon won the race!