Choice Morsels

Happy Wednesday! Today, I'm doing inside stuff because it rained this morning. I usually re-dye all my black summer capri's  yearly to freshen their color again and, since I have some brown, I did a round of brown dye as well. The only down side is having to clean out the washer barrel afterwards. The light carrot cake with the cream cheese & muscarpone icing was delicious without being too sweet. It definitely will be Monday's Good Eat recipe! Today I have "before" & "after" pics of my back yard rain garden: You can immediately see why I might want one here. This is where rain water gathers, though it does slowly drain out as well as soak in.  A Giant Red Leaf Tropical Lilly in the center here is the star feature for this rain garden. It's just a baby. When mature and filled out, this leafy giant will easily be 4-5 feet tall and wide. It's burgundy-tinted color will help break up the wall of green and it wi...

The Mama Kat topic for today is "Pinterest Inspired!" So here are some Pinterest inspired ideas for the yard & garden that I'm giving a whirl: Adding copper pennies to my bird bath to keep algae out. The copper has a chemical interaction against the algae, so pennies must be dated 1982 or earlier for adequate copper content. I dug around in my coin jar and found several pennies from the mid-70's, including one for 1975, the year I graduated! Into the bird bowl it went. (I can't say this works 100%. After awhile the algae seemed to build back up, but it was less severe.) Banana Peels For My Roses: I actually started chopping up banana peel and digging it into the ground around my various roses a couple years ago, ever since someone told me that "Roses Love Banana Peels." What I'm going to try that's new is : mixing used coffee grounds with chopped banana peel and mixing that concoction into the soil before I plan...