I am a retired 44-year veteran of the Real Estate Assessment field. As with real estate assessing and how it applies to real estate taxes, one can make many acquaintances, but not many real friends. It was a great career choice.
It has been nearly 10 years since I reclaimed my home and my real passions within my home. I enjoy it more each day and tip my hat to those who I left behind.
Each day I try to stretch myself with the use of my computer as it relates to this site and using it to print out labels for quilts for trying to incorporate photos into my sewing. Life is so full and I know that I have room for more.
Bedrooms on ground level couldn’t have a better safeguard than these cactus. It is the only cactus that withstands Minnesota winters. The bight green tips in the photo are all new growth. They will eventually put out spines up to a half inch in length. These cactus are more desirable in residential areas than the site of barbed wire.
A rock from Canada, a bit of garden art from the old Randall’s Grocery Store in New Ulm, Minnesota, a white Star of David bloom, and a pink perennial Geranium bloom: a perfect garden setting.
After a very dismal day yesterday and a cloudy morning today, the afternoon was very enjoyable. Patio sitting is just the best to watch traffic, listen to birds and take in the antics of Butter Ball and Snuggles.
If one is watching a documentary and someone wants to strike up an idle conversation . . . details within the content of the documentary could be missed.
If one is watching the Indy 500 and someone wants to strike up an idle conversation . . . all that is missed is another left hand turn.
Quite a few years ago my cousin, Jan, added to our garden art. Jan frequents garage sales looking for attractive pieces of glassware. The glass tower was set out about a month ago in a protected area. You never know what the cats will attack, or brush up against. In time, as I walked past the tower, I noticed it was leaning. The clear glass plate under the entire tower was cracked to the degree that there was separation of the pieces of glass. Not knowing what to do, we just laid it on it’s side to give it a good thinking.
On a trip to Mankato, I purchased a 10 lb. bag of concrete mix at Lowe’s. Wednesday I decided to tackle the project. I used a plastic tray that often can be found catching the extra water when watering potted plants. I sprayed the tray heavily with Pam. As I stirred water into my ice cream pail of cement powder, I also added some paint. As I lifted the tower over the wet cement to set it in, I made sure to twist and turn it, to make sure it was sitting on the bottom of the wet cement.
So happy to enjoy this piece of garden
art. It is truly one of a kind that can only be
made and given with true sentiment.
Over the last three days, I have been patiently watching as the concrete turned colors during the hardening process. This morning was the proof of the project. Dennis took a hold of the piece of glassware closest to the concrete and lifted up. Wonder of wonders, the plastic tray stayed on the table top and the glass tower was ready to be returned to the designated plot of plants. Dennis did remind me that when I move the tower or get it ready to be put away in the fall of the year, it will need to be picked up at its base. Doing it any other way, the weight of the base would put too much stress on the remaining pieces of glass that are glued together.
As I said, it could have gone either way. I would have been so sad, if one morning, I would have gone out with my cup of coffee to do my garden stroll and had seen nothing but broken glass of what had been such a beautiful, meaningful gift.
Our yard is like none other . . . so we have been told. Each spring the potting shed beckons us to unload it. 
Each spring we kind of look at the last of the snow that needs to melt, and we think maybe this year we will take a break and just leave the potting shed door . . . shut. So much for that thought. Perhaps we will revisit that thought in the spring of 2016.
Our garden art has been collected over the last 25 years. When you least expected it, a treasure could be found and I could just imagine where it would be put. Dennis has said he doesn’t want the yard to look junky. With the huge yard that we have, there are a lot of places to tuck some here, tuck some there, and before you know it . . . it looks and feels like another great season.
This early spring, with the winds making it feel like a late winter, we bundled up and got a few chairs out on the back patio. If nothing else, the birds made it feel like spring. Before I knew it, Dennis was in the potting shed and came out with a few of his favorite items to put on the north wall of the garage. Over the last month, and today, the final items were brought out and placed in the yard and gardens. The perennials took such a long time to show themselves, I didn’t trust myself to tramp around, until I could see some growth popping up.
As Dennis enjoys his rocking chair in the porch, his view
to the east took on a new look this year.
I have not added to the garden art for several years, but just like in a home it gets rearranged every once in awhile. It makes it seem like a new decor for Stauffer. One of the gals I worked with in the courthouse commented that we decorated our yard much like most people decorate the interior of their homes. Hey, I don’t have to dust the garden art.
Today Dennis got the camera out and was pleased with how the east end of the Koi pond 
was done for this year. If Papa is happy, everybody is happy. We do spend so much time outside on the patios and in the porch, it should be pleasing to the eye. Though our home is not large, in a drop of a hat we can accommodate several people or a crowd in the great outdoors.
The main reason for the energy we expend on the yard and gardens is for our very own enjoyment. Just farmers at heart, when spring arrives, it feels so normal to dig in the dirt and be outside. At the end of the day, more times than not you will find Dennis and me sitting on the patio while enjoying a York Peppermint Patty to close another great day.
What a glorious day. The temps reached a sunny 70. I played in the dirt and Dennis sprayed the lawns for weeds. His pull-behind sprayer is just the perfect fit for our acre. Life is good — even if our bodies tell us to take a break and save some of the fun for another day.
Butter Ball has great taste in flowers that he is determined to check out each and every day. I take comfort in the fact that the Fern Peony tubers will live through this and try again next year.
The Jack-in-the-Pulpit fought through the cool soil. The perennials are really slow to show this year. Too many cool days.
A busy social weekend threw us off of the Saturday lawn mowing schedule. An inch of rain left our yards lush. We would have had a front yard with heavy layers of cut grass to dry and smother what was underneath. if not for the very strong winds that took the grass as fast as the mower blew it out and took it far, far away. Today was the first time of me mowing a lawn that my ears got so cold that they actually hurt. Yup, May 18th, 2015, and the high for the day was 44 degrees.
They are talking of the possibility of frost these next several nights. Dennis and I needed to take all the potted plants in. The huge Schefflera had no more than been set on the floor of the porch, than Snuggles tried to climb the branches. He got cuffed away from the plant. When I came in with a second pot he was digging in the dirt of the Schefflera. During this time Butter Ball was lying under the table watching it all. Thank God kittens turn into cats that love to sleep for eighteen hours a day. We could just visualize the mayhem with all those choices of pots to play in.
That settled it . . . the thirteen pots from the three tiered planter are in the back of the pickup. The huge fern that hangs and graces the lower branches of the Lilacs is sitting on the backseat of my 1999 Lincoln. I will have to take my chances with the the Palm plant and the Schefflera as they are too large to take into the house. We have had both of those plants for six years and they sit on the edge of the Koi pond during the warm seasons. During the winter, the temperature in the garage porch never goes below 44 degrees. A perfect fit for plants to take a break until they are put out again in the spring.
Last winter Snuggles wasn’t around until late February. As a kitten, he had a lot to adjust to on ground level. It’s not as if Snuggles doesn’t have the the entire acre to take his antics out on. We were of sound mind when we took Snuggles in. What does that tell you about the older ones on Stauffer? If word gets out that Dennis and I are so easily played by four legged, cute critters . . . we are so screwed.