Spring is here

With the weather being so nice it is hard to stay inside or work on projects in the garage. I have been busy working on my garden and planting flowers in beds and pots. I have never grown herbs before and i decided to try my hand at that as well. i love using unusual items in my flower beds , like tractor seats to hold potted plants and a milk can to hold another, I also found a cool looking birdhouse school house that I have placed in the garden. I found an old metal tire rim and filled with soil and flowers, as well as an old metal wash tub. I hunted at the salvage yard and found 3 metal tubs from the inside of old washing machines and have painted them and filled them with soil and flowers as well. I like to make my own hanging plants because I refuse to pay the high prices that the garden centers charge. I have just bought an old porcelain double sink and i am looking for a spot to put it in the yard and fill it with flowers. My bird feeder and bird bath is a popular spot and I love watching the different birds that stop by for a drink and some food.. I have a little duck that has made a nest on the bank of the river, and I check on her daily to make sure she is ok. I am feeling very protective of my lil duck and can't wait to see her little babies, I counted about 5 eggs and i am hoping all of the babies survive. I have also noticed a pair of doves in the yard and my regulars, the canada geese and the woodpeckers. We also have a marmet that has made a home in one of the dead trees on the bank of the river and I am hoping that he does not harm the eggs or my garden, Maggie has not spotted him yet and i hope she doesn't because I think she would chase it. She leaves the birds alone and is fine with sharing the yard with them, but the squirrel she chases and i think she would try to play with the marmet.
This is also my favorite time of year because it is yard sale time and outside flea markets woohoo, I have picked up a few items, an oak swivel chair to go with my roll top desk and lots of items for the yard.
I have had a lot of action on some of the items i had for sale and am slowly making room in the garage and will be working on some new projects in the next couple of weeks.

Gardens and Moms

 My latest adventures have been to find objects for outside to personalize our space and add some colour with flowers and plants.There are some really interesting old junk pieces that look incredible in the garden with a little of imagination and some good earth and flowers. Yesterday I found an old metal container that will look great by the front porch with some vine like flowers in it, and I had hubby roll an old metal tire rim into the flower bed which i will fill with dirt and flowers. This will fit in nicely with the milk can and tractor seats already there. I found a cute little wooden wagon that I have placed in a flower bed along the house, the former tenants had filled the flower beds with wood chips, which were just a haven for maple bugs. I have since cleared out all the wood chips and have replaced the soil with peat moss and manure and plan to plant impatients in different colours, the area gets quite a bit of shade and impatients should flourish there.
My lilac bushes are just starting to bloom and the beatiful smell coming from them reminds me so much of my Mom. My mother always had lilac bushes planted in the yard and she would cut branches off and place them in vases in the house bringing the lilac smell in doors. They say smell is the strongest sense to trigger memories and the lilac smell sure proves that. I guess it's only fitting that they should bloom now so close to mothers day when my Mom is so much on my mind. I believe my love of flowers and attractive gardens comes from my Mom who would spend hours outside watering and caring for her flowers, I remember her on her knees with scizzors trimming grass around the rocks that bordered her flowerbeds. Today when i filled the wheel well I recalled my Mom placing tires around our yard at the cottage and filling them with flowers and making them look great and I realized how much like her I am. Some daughters including mine would panic at the thought that they had become like there mothers, but today I am proud that I have inherited some of my mothers qualities and interests.  I happy that I have these memories and I hope somehow that my Mom can see all that she has given me and how incredible she was, I hope one day my daughters will also make this discovery and be thankful for the little things that have passed from Mother to daughter.
Happy Mothers Day Mom

Wow has a whole month gone by already

 I can't believe that I haven't posted in a month, I guess I have been so busy with my projects and yard work since the weather has been so nice. I have completed a few of the projects that I bought for resale. The girls bedroom set is restored painted and sold, the little girls desk is finished as is the babies dresser and change table. I have decided to clear out some of the garage and basement and have a yard sale this weekend, we will see how that goes. I am eager to do some things outside but wish we weren't renting this place so I could go crazy and do whatever I want. We are thinking that even though we are only here for a year we might try to find a cheap place to buy that needs work and buy fix it and flip it when the contract is over. that should give me lots to do, the only thing is most of the places we have looked at don't have garages and i need one.
I find trying to divide myself between wife, bulldog Mom and caretaker and furniture restorer is sometimes a hard one, i don't have enough hours in my day for what I want to do and need to be cloned for the things I have to do. The problem with having a 3 year old bulldog who is like a spoiled demanding toddler is 3 years olds grow out of it and maggie won't lol Everytime I get set up to start a project she wants me to play with her and entertain her, thank god hubby is off for two weeks so he can play bulldog Daddy and let me get some stuff done.
i found an amazing dresser vanity at the salvation army and only wish the bedroom here would fit it, but hopefully one day i will have a bedroom bigger than a postage stamp, in the meantime the dresser is in the sunroom along with my hutch that won't fit in the diningroom lol (its a very small house, but on the river with amazing views and huge yard so that all makes it worth while.
As I was saying gorgeous dresser, also found an old iron bed frame that I have bordering the garden right now and I also found an old Raleigh bike that was built in 1969 that i had orginally bought for the garden but it is in too good a shape for that i may just ride it. I am up too 5 antique dressers now, i hope one day to turn two of them into bathroom vanities, and I have also picked up a gorgeous wooden chair I can hubbies throne and vintage rocking chair. I scored another porcelain light to go with my set, that I also hope to use once we buy a house, and a couple of tractor seats and milk can. As I sit here writing this I know I should be working on something out in the garage but its a cloudy day and I have my coffee and I am watching the robins and the geese in the yard and i think this may be a day of rest and relaxation, tomorrow will be a busy day getting everything ready for the yard sale, and we all know the yard sale day is going to exhausting. so today I will give my tired body a rest.