Old French Gardening Magazines

I picked up a bunch of these funny old French Gardening Magazines the other day...

They are colorful newsprint, with articles,
pictures, crossword puzzles and classified ads.

Love the name:  Rustica

I like them because of the bright vintage front and rear covers
and of course that fact that the language is French...
 Hey these might be fun to frame!

The ones with the flowers and vegetables are especially pretty...
the bright colors would be great in a child's room or a mud room,
or how about a garden shed?

Peter Rabbit or the Easter Bunny....

your guess is as good as mine

I know very little French actually,
 but it was fun to see if I could somewhat read and comprehend a few of the articles

 A crossword puzzle in French?  

Nope....I can't even do them in English

These might be wonderful to wrap a little gift in... 

Scrap-booking maybe?

What would you use these for?
I have a few more ideas

How about you....?

Have a wonderful weekend

~kelley~

Chicken Envy

OK 

So I want chickens

I have neighbors with chickens

I have blog friends with chickens

Like my friend Brooke,

who takes her chickens with her when she travels

and Andrea

who loves her chickens like children

In fact many bloggers I love...

like Heather

 have wonderful coops too,
 like this one here,
 only better...

I now have coop envy too...
clearly this is becoming a problem...

 Me ....I got nothin'! 

 

no coop

no chicken's 

 Nada   

 Zip    

Zero

 OK...moving right along...

What should I do about this?
I mean this is serious

Lets review the facts:

Am I a capable chicken farmer?
yes...at least I think so

I mean I have a dog

She's pretty easy to please,
so it couldn't be all that hard
could it? 

Maybe I should hire a chicken wrangler?
That sounds good!
I give him total control.

I wonder what they charge?
Hmmm..... could get expensive

I know!
 I'll ask my neighbor Christine,
She likes animals

Guess what she said?


"Take care of your own frickin chickens"

Oh
 and then she added

"Get a life Kelley!"

OK
we're back to the chicken wrangler

 My chosen chicken personnel 

will be the following:

him

He will teach me...this chicken wrangler guy

Maybe we will fall madly in  love, 

the chicken guy and I...

It will be a weird relationship

 Because he probably likes this:

And I like this:

OK

this will never work

I don't really know any chicken guys any way... 

And what is with the goofy hat Mister?
And where is your shirt?

But, as you may have guessed.....

I still want chickens 

yep

but

I'm over it...

chicken's can wait
CHICKEN MAN
is goofy anyway

sorry

never mind

~k~

then again...I wonder if you can have chickens in a Condo?
Hmmm?

Daffodil's and Lemons

Hello 

Yellow

 Springs favorite color

The daffodils are popping up...a bit soggy from all of the rain 

I gathered up all of the lemons that were on our 

old lemon tree.

 It fell over in the last storm.

We did manage to save him...but he's a little banged up

 I saved as many lemons as made sense....well this really makes no sense,

 but they actually store fairly well.

 I love to use parsley to fill in little bouquets...I have tons of parsley too

 This little bouquet is easy to do without a garden!

 Buy a small bunch of parsley from the grocery store 

and a little package of daffy's 

Have a happy 

yellow

weekend

~kelley~

A Big Thank you!

About a week ago I received a really nice email from Layla Palmer.

What a nice surprise...

that Layla...yep...

Somehow she discovered my blog and asked to do a little post about it!!!!

What? Are you kidding me?

WOW

The Lettered Cottage was one of the very first blogs I started to follow and 

I still read as many posts as I can manage to get to.

She and her husband Kevin are a wonderfully talented couple,

super cute and full of energy. 

 I love the videos of the two of them with crow bars and nail guns.  

It's very funny stuff.

They are also contributing editors for Flea Market Style magazine,

which is just one of the many projects they have going on.  

Just read Layla's blog...it is amazing what she can fit in on any given day.

She manages to keep it fresh and fun... always!

 Her post was about our house at the beach...

the one we sold with everything in it, 

and the little rancher in Ojai we are renovating.

She really captured the details and the story...

which I know is a bit confusing at times.

Sometimes I'm even confused!

You can read the post here!

So... thank you so much for the feature Layla.

I will do my best to 

 keep it interesting and more importantly

I always try to keep it real!

Cheers

~kelley~

Mother Nature and A New Garden

 Mother Nature was in a very bad mood this last weekend

and she dropped over 6" of rain and hit us with some crazy winds.

 We lost one of the older Lemon trees.

It was really top heavy with fruit 

and a bit diseased.

 We lost a huge low hanging branch on one of the old Oaks too.

 Guess we will have some fire wood for next Winter, right?

 There is debris everywhere and lots of power out all over Ojai.  

All I have heard all day is the buzzing of chain saws.

 A few neighbors lost some really huge Oaks, so we feel pretty lucky.

 Today the sun finally came out 

and the little seasonal creek was so pretty full of water.

 How wonderful would it be if it was always like this?

After all of the rain if you want to dig a new bed, now is the time.

 The soil is heavy but can be worked fairly easily...well not really easily,

 but at least you can get a shovel into it.

 This new bed will be a lavender garden.

I like Lavendula "Grosso", 

which I have used in many other spots, 

but this garden will consist of about 100 plants grouped together. 

 Grosso is the "go to" Lavender for crafts 

and drying because of the smell and the vibrant blue flowers.

I have been wanting to do this project for a while, 

but knew that I would have to dig this when the soil was really saturated.

 I start these beds using a pitch fork.

  This works great because the fork doesn't get hung up on rocks,

large and small...which are everywhere. 

 I swear the rocks are having babies like bunnies!

 After the pitch fork process,

 I throw in a bag or two of this stuff...

I also use this in the veggie garden!

 Then we get to fire up my fave little garden toy... 

the  Honda tiller or "Tilley" as I like to call her.

She is a girl of course...she's really cute.

I love my Tilley

...she may even need a bow or some lipstick!

 The Lavender garden will be next to the raised veggie beds and adjacent to the English roses

 This took about 4 hours and I will finish the other side tomorrow...weather permitting.

 We rarely sit here, 

so I would rather see a beautiful bed of Lavender, 

instead of empty chairs.

I'm hoping to get the beds finished and planted next week 

and we are also still working on the Master Bathroom

...UGH!

Stay Tuned  

&

Happy Spring 

xo

kelley