A Note From Zabrina.

Trees: Painting in my studio again.

I started my art studio back up. My kids are gone, married and moved away. My two grand babies are in New York, so my life is in a better place where I can break out the old paint and brushes again. I love to paint. I'm a abstract artist. I love all art styles, but I find that this type of abstract tends to full my passion for color. I adore watercolor but I'm afraid I rather suck at it. I stick with oils and acrylics mostly. I'm doing trees and colors right now. I'm playing with birds as well but my birds end up looking like cartoons, sadly.

I'll keep brushing away at ideas until I come up with something grand.

Busy Day.

What a week of busy work in my kitchen. I wanted to show some pictures of my canning progress so far.

Colorful sweet peppers, Dill Pickles, and Banana Peppers. yay!! Next week, I'll can tomatoes and pumpkin. Note: I should have used gloves to cut the peppers. My finger nails were on fire for two days after I canned two dozen pickled banana peppers. You can bet I wont do that again. Have a wonderful day. Zabrina

DIY Raised Flower Bed For My Small Garden.

We live in Georgia and my yard is nothing but red clay. It's not dirt, it's not soil. Planting a garden in the red clay just does not work. We have to import soil and this just washes away with every rain. A good location for a garden would be right off my deck, away from the dog's yard. We have a ton of bird and rabbits but I'm pretty sure a raised flower bed would still work. Talking to other gardeners in our area I have few ideas now of my own to makes two raised bed which would be easy to put together ( meaning by myself ) Everything you will need you can get at the Home Depot store. Home Depot will cut all the wood for you right there which makes this project super easy to put together. You will need:
32 three inch decking screws.
2 4x4 by 8 non-pressure treated posts: cut into 9 inch sections. you will need
8 3 10x12 foot non- pressure treated boards. Cut one board into 4 three foot section cut the other two boards in half making 4 six foot sections. You will have wood left over. This will make you two six foot raised flower beds. Having them cut at Home Depot makes it easy to get your wood supplies back home. I'm using non-pressure treated wood because I want to use wood that has not been treated with chemicals that will likely end up in my food. twelve bags of top soil in each box with two additional bags of peat moss mixed in. Each box will need 2 three foot boards for the ends and 2 six foot boards for the sides. You'll need 4 of your 9 inch 4 x 4 post for the insides. Use your deck screws to put the box together. Power tools for great for this project. Each bed took me 10 min to put together.

For a last min project two months late, I'm pretty happy over all with how it all turn out. Next spring I'll be ready to have these two boxes filled to the brim with seedlings ready to grow. I might even add another two boxes.