Petite Ferme En Ville




Cooler weather is here, reminding me to get some projects done in the yard before the snow flies in a few short months. Ross has been on a staycation from work for 2 weeks and has been working on scraping and touching up paint on the house that bubbled or peeled. Today, I put on my rubber boots and worked out in the yard for three hours. My girls make fun of my "farm boots" but hey- I grew up on a farm and am a farmgirl at heart. So, I'll just create my own petite ferme right here in this yard
en ville.

Sturdy boots- bring on the mud!



First up this afternoon was welcoming home 2 bunny rabbits from my friend Jim's farm.  He sold all the other ones for meat last week, but thought the girls would enjoy having two to make them smile. He even threw in the cage!  There is the white one you can see in the picture and also a black one that is hiding in the box.  My trusty 4-H skills (did I mention I won Grand Champion in Rabbit Showmanship- big purple ribbon!) tell me that we will soon have more bunnies because silly Jim kept all the bunnies in the same cage and in feeling white bunny's tummy, yup.  I better get some straw in there....and another cage.

 




Bunnies still waiting to be named...



I put their cage in the garden- instant fertilizer!  I will move it this Spring and till all those poop bb's into the soil... The neighborboy has already brought over some veggies and apple peelings for the rabbits.  Add him to their fan club!

Since I was already in the garden, I decided to pick some cherry and pear tomatoes.  We have had bushels of them.  The girls love them and I had enought share with a friend and her family.

Then, I harvested my crop of mini pumpkins.  Just a few plants soon took over my garden! I have 2 bushel baskets full for decorating and also some to sell in our Iowa Junk Gypsies booth at the Kane County Flea Market!

I also plan to harvest the seed pods off this gorgeous annual Purple Hyacinth bean vine and next Spring, we will have starts of the vine for sale in our booth.  It is so fast growing and the flowers are pretty.

The purple flowers turn into seed pods, so it reseeded itself this year from 2 plants I got from Kroul's Farm last year.  I traded some old enamelware buckets and wire plant containers for the two plants when I cleaned out the garden shed!

Finally, I planted two trees in the side lot.  We get so much south sun on the house, we need some natural shade to keep the utility bill low.  It will be a few years until these get big enough to be of much help, but we''re on our way!



This is an Autumn Blaze maple.  The leaves turn red in the fall (hence the name).
It is in the middle 1/3 of the yard.





This is a flowering crabapple tree that bears no fruit- just flowers in the Spring.
It's in the front 1/3 of the yard.


So now it's time for a shower, pjs and reading the Sunday paper.