Eagles Wings

And I thought that my hair was getting too long! Can you imagine how much time it took to wash and brush that hair? Wow....and how heavy it was? But obviously she was very proud of it....

I didn't post yesterday as we did massive gardening....we have a long retaining wall in our backyard...over 100 ft. with two terraces....on the upper one we planted oleanders the first year but they didn't do very well.....too cold each winter and froze them...we'd cut them back and they would flourish until the next frost. We've been talking about replacing them with something that could take our colder winters.
Being in an inland valley, our weather is different and unique....we have real seasons, although mild by Midwest standards...it does freeze here and we occasionally get snow, although its unusual.

You can see a section of the retaining wall in the photo with an oleander..we have more fruit trees than in that photo too now.

We decided to get some bushes that could take colder temps and fairly maintenance free...we got Korean privet bushes....we planted 16 of them across the back and they grow fast according to the garden center at Home Depot. It was a big job chopping all the oleander out and digging out roots. Our son Matt helped us, Alan dug the new holes and I planted the new bushes.....tiring work but it looks nice now.
After that we were on a roll, and went to our local garden center, Louies...we got a butterfly bush, two tomato plants and some strawberry plants....got those all planted too. We are putting the tomatoes in a barrel on the patio. The strawberry plants went into the lower terrace...

We are thinking about building some raised beds across a section of our yard..its a narrow section about 50 ft. long and 15 ft. wide...we could build about 8-10 raised beds and grow quite a few vegetables....probably have to get a truck load of garden soil brought in....our native soil is poor, mostly decomposed granite with lots of rocks...this is still in the thinking stage at this point.

Many here live on acreage and have mini farms....I would love to do that...as I posted previously this side of Menifee is rural.....we are on the edge of the town and within walking distance are such places....but actually we could have a mini mini farm right here.

I noticed we have new nectarines forming, the pink lemonade tree and the fig tree have tiny fruit also....only our poor orange tree is bare...no flowers or fruit..its been 3 years and nothing....it may be time soon to replace it.

Mama dove is sitting on another clutch of eggs...while I was working with our rose bushes yesterday, I heard from noises from under the large climbing rose bush we have and there were the two babies from her first clutch hiding, peeking out from under the bush to watch me...I was spraying some soap solution on the roses as they have a lot of aphids....they didn't fly away and I was very close....it was a blessing to see their sweet gentle faces...there is a layer of fallen leaves under the bush and they'd found a safe haven there. I might put down some seed for them today...I know doves like sunflower seeds...and we have a bird bath close by for water.

well, better go for today...but as you can see, we've been busy. Its good to get this work done now but our hot summer comes...we don't do much gardening then...just very early morning and evening....even the roses stop blooming when it gets over 100...