Around the Ranch

Ms. Gray decided to have her kittens this past Wednesday.  She had 4 little babies that look pretty much exactly like her, but they seem to have a little bit of a stripe.  There are a couple of boys and a couple of girls.  Very sweet.  She had them on the deck in the back of a somewhat broken ceramic vase/pot.  It's perfect place for them.  More pictures as they grow each week.  We'll keep at least two of them, but the other two are available for adoption to a loving home. 

This weekend was "deadheading" weekend.  Meaning the roses had to be deadheaded.  This is before their trim.  There were massive blooms everywhere - the scent as we walked out the front door was heavenly.  This is our third year with the rose garden and it's looking great.  Because of the mealy-bug infestation last year (although they didn't get the roses), we've been putting Neem on everything in the garden since the first green shoots starting growing.

I had a huge wheelbarrow full of rose petals that had been trimmed.  Because of the spiders (I saw a couple of Black Widows while I was trimming) and because of the Neem, I decided not to keep the petals for sachets.  Also - there were so many I would have had pillow cases full of petals, not pretty little sachet packets.

Post trim.  What's left are the roses that have just bloomed and the buds that haven't yet opened.  I didn't take any off this time for cut flowers as I won't be home to enjoy them.  I figured Tim would enjoy them more in the garden than in the kitchen.

And we started to have our first crop of Strawberries!!!  Yum!!!  Right now we get a bowl full this size each day.  By the end of the season, we're going to have to be making strawberry pies and preserves to use them all!