Midsummer is Here!
Here we are, halfway through July. Summer is not my season, I gotta say. I am not a warm weather person. If summer is your season, I say enjoy it, but I will stay out of the sun, slathered up with SPF 50 if I do venture out, and be grateful for AC.
Wildlife Pond
Here at Jewel HQ we have been slowly replacing older landscaping with California natives and pollinators. In late winter, early spring I planted (from seeds) a lot of wildflowers and pollinators along the driveway where we lost so many trees in the winter storms and it’s been an overwhelming success. The plants are now in full bloom and I have seen bees, bumblebees, hummingbirds, and butterflies enjoying them. California natives are generally drought tolerant and I only watered at the start, and only a few times and not once since and the plants are tall and lush. I think I’ve lost a few to critters but not many. The plan now is to prep more of the driveway and sow more seeds because it’s really a breathtaking sight.
I used an old sink to build a wildlife pond and that, too, has been a success. I’m still landscaping around it so it will continue to look better and better. It’s got three plants in it, one of which is blooming, and a solar fountain that keeps the water moving and discourages mosquitos. All in all, it was a simple, inexpensive project that was well worth the effort of digging a hole deep enough for the sink — which is fairly deep as sinks go. That was the hardest part. It’s got negative space at the bottom, substrate to act as a filter, one large rock and some layers of smaller rocks plus the plants and the fountain. Wildlife has been spotted at the pond!
Bound In Smoke
I am in the editing phase now. The story is essentially done, and I am going through and just fixing stuff and adding details etc. I am getting so excited about this book! At the moment word count is holding steady at around 92K.
Tags: Bound in Smoke, Gardening
Kudos on your wildlife pond project and progress on Bound In Smoke!