this little life of mine

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from page 251 of Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr:

"I needed a backup plan." Irial smiled, but this time it was dark and deadly, tinged with more than a little challenge. "I need her."

"You can't have her," Niall started. But Irial gripped his arms: every lovely memory Niall had run from and every whispered horror of the Dark Court came rushing to his mind in a morass - then Niall felt like he was swallowing it, like he'd been drinking that too-sweet, forcibly forgotten wine. "Stop."

This morning mom and I decided to go out and dump the putrid water out of the dying tomato's Earthbox. It stopped taking water almost immediately after planting, and the water that was sitting in the reservoir was seriously stinky! We are hoping that now we've gotten rid of the bad water, that the dying tom might make a comeback.

After that little task, we took another look at the little garden and I made a discovery: a little baby bell pepper that I totally missed yesterday:

It'll be a while before its big enough for harvest, but it's still very exciting to see!

The rest of the yard looks pretty good, too, despite the dry, dying, crabgrass-infested lawn:

Our patio is pretty and peaceful with the bright Cosmos and Pansies and our charming little yard critters:

Some of the flowers (day lilies, echinachea and the one I can never remember the name of) along the side of the house are blooming or about to bloom:

And on the other side, there are pretty flowers blooming as well:

And, out front my Midas Touch rose is blooming like crazy:

Our little garden is really booming! The Big Boy toms and the zucchini are exploding! There's a chance we'll have some little squash ready for harvest by next week!

The little pepper plant that's sharing an Earthbox with the zucchini is doing pretty well, too:

There are little peppers starting to develop!!

The other two pepper plants look okay. Okay, the one on the right looks good, but the one on the left is a little puney, and from the looks of the leaves, something is attacking it.

The Big Boy tomato plant looks really good and is loaded with blossoms!

The dying Early Girl tomato plant still looks sad, but I think the one little tom has gotten a bit bigtger since last week:

We have hope that it might yet be saved!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from page 23 of Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr:

She looked at the other tattoos, but her attention returned to that image as if compelled by it. That one's mine.

Our already small Earthbox garden is rapidly shrinking:

It appears the Early Girl tomato plant is dying. Whether it's from disease or pests we aren't sure yet, but the leaves are curling, have black spots, and are drying out. It's stopped taking water. We moved it away from the other plants (and noticed the Big Boy toms were looking quite pitiful, so now we're afraid we might lose it as well) and sprayed it with insecticidal soap:

It's a real bummer, because I noticed a little tiny green tomato has just started to come to life:

I got a couple shots of the leaves. We also noticed some little black flying bugs - like fruit flies or something - all over the stalk of the plant.

*sigh* GARDENING IS HARD!!!

Luckily the other plants seem to be doing quite well, and we can only hope that whatever attacked Early Girl won't get everything else. Anyway, here's our other tomato plant:

And, here's two green bell pepper plants:

And the third poor little pepper plant we stuck with the zucchini is actually doing great despite being crowed out by its ginormous Earthbox-mate. It's even got a nice big blossom on it:

By far the SuperStar of the garden this year is the zucchini squash plant. It's HUGE, covered with giant yellow blossoms and already has three little squashies on it like the one below:

So, there's that.

Out in the front, my Midas Touch rose bush has grown like CRAZY, and we can't even cut it back beause it's got a few beautiful blooms on it and dozens of ginormous buds:

 So I can grow zucchinis and roses. Not too bad, I guess.

Well, our house is all painted and it looks wonderful! It's a kind of greyish blue and the scalloped trim is just slightly darker; the trim is a bright true white. It's such a relief to have that done!

Our new outdoor lights were installed, too:

They look SO much nicer than the old ones. Ew. Shudder!

This morning, mom and I trimmed and mowed the front and back lawns (such as they are), then put our garden back in order.

I'm thrilled at how well these flowers are doing! Check out these Cosmos:

 And the pansies just exploded!!

 Yay, the day lilies are finally blooming!

In the past month I've been on an outdoor decor spending spree, and it was really fun to put out all our fun new stuff! Here's our new handmade copper hose pot:

And here's our adorable new garden gnome:

This new outdoor thermometer looks SO much better on our new fence than the old one:

Oh, and I don't think it was actually 90 degrees out. The thermometer had been sitting in the sun a bit long. Yeah, it's still too early for that kind of heat!

And finally, here's my new recycled metal lanterns. Mom and I put some small pots inside them, filled the pots with old aquarium gravel and put in a couple citronella candles. I think they looks really nice on the table with the pot of marigolds and my little froggie statuette:

We're both very happy with our backyard, even though the grass is dry and dead and overrun with crabgrass, but that's a project for another day. Or maybe next year. Yeah. Next year!