Summer at Wicked Stones

I thought I'd spend a bit of time filling you in on how things were around here this summer. My coffee is full so I've got the will to sit and type for a while.

It was the SUMMER OF CATERPILLARS!! Please excuse my toenails.. We had a horrible summer of these little guys this year. For a while, we thought they would not bother us as they didn't seem to be eating our main plants. But little did we know, they were nesting in all of our newly planted Spruce trees that we put in! All our baby blue spruce had nests of these little darlings chomping away all of the branches! YIKES! Rob and I are "anti-chemical" when it comes to the yard so we spent hours and hours picking these nasty creatures off our trees.. finally we just had to give up as we could not keep up with the chomping. Our trees survived, but they all look like Charlie Brown Christmas trees.. sigh.. If anyone has any natural suggestions on how to stop these eaters? PLEASE do let me know..

It was also the Summer of Rock Gardens in our yard.

Rob took a month off from work this year (yippee!) and he spent a lot of time moving huge rocks across the property and from the hill to the East of us. He had this crazy sled attached to the back of the truck with ropes and would drive wayyy back in the bush and find these monsters to put in the yard. It was kind of interesting watching him coming back looking like a futuristic dog sled team with these rocks following him on a purple snow sled. That sled has become a major part of our gardening supplies as the circular sleds can carry trees, rocks and more goodies that are too heavy to life and just need to be slid into place. We planted some really nice willows and flowers in these beds and finished them off with mulch. They look simply beautiful!! Jeepers, you think we lived here instead of renting!!

This summer also brought a new treasure to our home!! Much to my total surprise, my parents gave me a wonderful gift for my birthday (in July). They arrived for a visit with a camera in tow.. oh it was my dream camera! A new digital Pentax SLR!! Oh I had been dreaming about this for over a year!! Thanks Mom and Dad! I just LOVE love love it!! So the next months everyone felt quite "stalked" as I'd creep around catching everyone in the yard! This camera has brought about a new feel to our website (Wicked Stones) as now the pictures are crisp and clear and quite a lot more beautiful!


Rob also found me some treasures for my birthday.

We found an add in the local Bargain Hunter for "Free Rocks". Well...of course we called (apparently I have a "rock problem" as Rob puts it..
So off we went! Only to find the most beautiful limestone pieces that are now center showpieces in our yard... That's Rob in the picture doing his "strong man" routine.

It was a pretty great summer!