Life Transplanet

Because of how incredibly busy and emotionally drained we’ve been these last few weeks, we simply did not have time to tend the garden or greenhouse. So we finally went out and assessed the damage. Upon opening the greenhouse door, we were hit with a wall of tomato plants that were so thick we could hardly walk through it. Still everything seems to have been thriving even without our attention, if somewhat out of control and weedy. We also have a few peppers, lots of basil, sage, and thyme.

Wall of Tomatoes

Welcome to the jungle

Handful of tomatoes

The bounty

The Memorial Service for Dad was very nice. Lots of people came, many memories were shared, and I think the slide show video we made was extra special. Here are a few images from the day. Thanks to everyone who came, or was there in spirit.

Father Brian from my mom’s church officiated. Also in picture are my brother, mom and Justin’s girlfriend

Quite a few people came out

Britton is my rock and did great on the technical aspects of the day

I thought this was such a great flower bouquet for Dad

We sang Amazing Grace and the Honor Guard presented Mom with a flag

Afterward we went out to dinner

It was a tough day, but we got through it. I think we did a great job of honoring Dad. Thanks again to everyone who has helped us through this.

Today after work I was hanging out in the yard with the animals admiring all the plants in the yard, but especially the daisies. I would like the whole perimeter of our yard to be filled in with flowers and plants like this patch of daisies. Hardy ones to combat the chicken scratching and pecking.

Schnoodle and Omelette with Daisies

We also have a lot of food plants, like these peppers, but also tomatoes flowering all over!

The front yard is filling in really nicely with some perennial wild flowers we planted as seeds when we put new plants in there.

Zinnia and Baby’s Breath

Mmm I love basil with cheese and tomatoes! And this is purple -extra mmm.

Football and Henrietta up close and personal

And for fun, here is a song called Daisy by one of my favorite bilingual musicians, Kevin Johansen

We get the best sunsets without ever leaving our house in Greeley. Sitting on our back porch in the summertime, we love to watch the sun go down. It is so pretty. Here are a few pics I took tonight. It is like a painting that changes before our eyes. Click to enlarge to see it in more vivid detail.

Rose in the flower garden enjoying the display as well

And for you chicken fans….

Our new plants, that we just dug up, hauled over to our house, removed all the mulch for, and planted are…gone! I came home from lunch today to see they were almost all taken! I was so upset. Some of the plants were left though. They were mainly the plants that we had had there before or that we had just got at the store and still had the price tag hanging from them. Therefore, all signs point to the neighbor who abandoned her property or else wouldn’t a random person have taken all of them and not been so selective?

This is all that’s left!

Argh. I really don’t know what to do! She probably assumed that we just stole her plants and so she was going to steal them back. Or she thought maybe that we had something to do with her getting the ticket about the noxious weeds even though we were just as surprised.

It is so weird though. They were there this morning, then they were gone at 2pm when I stopped by home after a lunch meeting. I asked all our neighbors and they didn’t see anything. Our roommate was home but just hanging out in the basement so didn’t see anything.

What would you do? Write a letter to her? Post a note on her house saying that we received permission to take the plants because they would have otherwise been mowed down? Post a “No Trespassing” sign on our yard?

All that hard work! And she lives in a rental where she can’t really do all that gardening, so what will happen to all those plants?

We could just leave it be and forget about it, or try and fill it with more plants from our backyard and greenhouse. Or just buy some more (I don’t think we’ll take any more from that yard -let them mow it for all I care now!). It’s weird because if she had wanted the plants, she could have just dug them up from her old yard. There are still plenty of plants! But I think she was sending us a message. I kept asking Britton if he thought she would be upset and he said, “She could care less. She has moved on and that is not her house anymore.” Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I think she might have been the one to turn us in to the city for our chickens as well…neighbor drama.