Pine Trees, Great Drough Resistant Trees

I have noticed that pine trees in my garden has been thriving very well for these dry days.

Waiting for Rain

Since I live near to the mountains, the weather here is very dynamic.
Suddenly, it gets so windy like storm is coming, and dark clouds appear in the sky.
I think it is a sign that the season will change from summer to fall soon.

What disappointed us when we had the dark clouds shown above 2 or 3 days before was the clouds didn't drop rain in our area.
The dark clouds disappeard very soon and we had sunny blue sky again.

We haven't had rain for a long time and my garden has been way too dry.

Hope, we will have rain soon!

New Bird Bath

A new bird bath for my back yard.

It was a surprise that I had a very hard time to find a new bird bath available near to my house.
Before, Home Depot, Lowe's, and other garden stores had many selections of garden statues, but not any more.
I was lucky that I could purchase the new bird bath shown above at Garden Country in Broomfield, Colorado.
Garden Country was a very nice store with wide selections of flowers, trees, and other garden items.
Besides, the store people were very friendly and helpful.

Garden Country:
4181 West 120th
Broomfield, CO 80020
(303) 466-6761.

Homemade Pesto

How is your summer garden?

My basils have been doing very well.
I made pesto with basil leaves harvested from my garden twice so far.
They were so yummy!

The recipe is as follows:
4 cups of basil leaves.
1 cup Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup walnut
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup olive oil.

Hope you can get a chance to taste fresh pesto, too!

Specially Designed Bunk Bed

In my recent trip to Japan, I saw cleaver ways to utilize small spaces. This is one of the idea I came across.

(1) The Benefit of The Specially Designed Bunk Bed
In a case two persons have to share a room with a bunk bed, this specially designed bunk bed will be set in the middle of the room instead of against the wall in order to divide the one room into two small areas. This will give the two occupants more a sense of privacy.

(2) The design of The Bunk Bed
The lower bed will have a wooden sliding 3 (or any numbers work well)panels door on one side and will be open the other.
The top bed will have the same configuration except the sliding panels door on the opposite side as compared to the lower bed.

(3) When one moves out of the room, the bed can be pushed against the wall and the top bed can be used as a storage.

I hope you find this idea interesting!

Peony in Bloom

This year again, my peony is in bloom. The bush is still small but very healthy and strong.

Lookout Mountain Natural Trails Colorado

Lookout Mountain in Jefferson County (JEFFCO), Colorado is my current favorite place to go for a hiking. My husband and I have tried only one trail so far. We drive up to a parking lot (oh, no, we don’t start from the base of the mountain but many bikers are so tough to ride up to the top of the mountain), start to hike on a trail which can give us nice shade along side of pine trees with moderate ups and downs. It takes about 1 and half hours for us to make a round trip on the trail. We enjoy seeing deer, tiny wild flowers and wild animals. The fragrance from the pine trees is wonderful, too. It’s nice and cool up there so it’s a nice place to do hiking on a hot day and refresh bodies with fresh green air.

Information: jeffco.us/openspace

Red Robin’s Nest

There are a red robin’s nest and a wild dove’s nest in my back yard.
I assume they are regular couples who have been nesting in my back yard every spring.
They are like my extended family members.
I feel so happy to see them come back to my garden every spring and pray for their babies grow safely.
This morning, I found a red robin was getting earthworms from the compost pile. I am happy she/he found the compost pile has many earthworms for their babies.

Growing Potato in Compost Pile

I found a potato has been growing from my compost pile.
Should I harvest some potatoes this summer?
My compost pile has been maturing with rich dark soil and many earthworms.
It’s so relaxing to smell very earthy soil from the compost pile.
No bad odder at all.
When I keep kitchen garbage in the kitchen or garage for a while, they start to smell bad. But once I mix them with soil in the compose pile, they don’t smell bad at all. No flies flying around, either.
Is this because I live in a very dry climate?
My simple big hole compost pile has been a success.

Fresh Green Shoots

While staying in Japan, I enjoyed hiking almost every day.
It was amazingly green everywhere in Japan, many trees and many flowers. Green and green.
I just sat on a rock or somewhere available and enjoyed inhaling and exhaling fresh green air. It was wonderful!

Today, I was looking for fresh green shoots in my garden here in Colorado, U.S.A. and found a pine tree attached above.
It's a wonderful feeling to see fresh life energy.

New Tulips in My Garden

Here are some tulips bloomed in my garden this spring.
These were the new tulips added to my garden last fall.
I was on vacation in Japan for 6 weeks and my husband took these photos for me.


They survived snow.


My favorite classic pink and red tulips.


These were interesting pointy shaped tulips.


Ducks loved the tulips.


This was a surprise. My husband found a duck's egg near to the tulips. Ducks' mother had abandoned the egg and never came back to the egg. After 3 days, the egg was gone. Probably, a fox or raccoon took it.

Happy New Year

Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

Frozen Water Fall in Idaho Spring, Colorado.