"Weekend" Explorations Pt. 1 (and garden update!)

Because Mike works the traditional Saturday/Sunday weekend, our weekend is Thursday/Friday...and this "weekend" we decided to do a little local exploration. We used to go on little trips all the time, but haven't in a while. April from Flourish and Debonair's blog post was just the kick in the butt we needed to get out!
And I think we lucked out majorly, because the weather Thursday and Friday was gorgeous, and it's been raining all Saturday and Sunday!

First stop: The North Shore. We love the quaint New England shore towns like Glouster and Essex, so we drove up that way on the hunt for three things: sea glass, old cemeteries, and antiques.


We went to a beach in Glouster to do some sea glass hunting. It was pretty quiet and we found some sea glass, but not a whole lot. Of course I forgot to bring a sweatshirt and had to commandeer Mike's, so we didn't stay for too long.
After that we zipped over to one of my favorite antique stores, the White Elephant in Essex. I got some great new sheet music for future projects there, score!
Right behind the White Elephant is a very old cemetery dating back to the 1600's.


We've tried to go there before but were driven out by mosquitoes. But today it was bright and sunny and perfect! There are some really amazing old graves there.
By this time we were pretty ravenous. The North Shore has tons of wonderful restaurants, but the majority of them around Essex are seafood...not particularly good for veggies! As we were driving around aimlessly with increasingly growling stomachs we passed the sign for a family farm we've been to in the past.
"RUSSEL ORCHARDS! TURN THE CAR AROUND!" I screamed as Mike slammed the breaks and pulled a U-ie. You see, Russel Orchards is a magical place where they produce sunshine and happiness. Well, almost. They have a giant old barn that is an open store with all sorts of handmade goodness. Warm cider donuts, fresh cider, homemade salsa and spreads, CANDY, soap...you name it. They are also home to some of the world's cutest animals.
We bought some donuts, cider, roasted red pepper salsa and crackers and had the most satisfying impromptu picnic right there. Then we walked around and I touched too many stinky animals.


On Friday we went down to the South Shore and continued to have even more amazing adventures, but I think I will bore you with those another time.

I did, however, want to give a quick update on the progress of our little deck garden, now a week later.
Everything is growing really well so far! The morning glory seeds have already started to sprout, and the topsy-turvy tomato plant has it's first buds. My flowers are growing like weeds (especially the lavender) and will probably need even bigger pots at some point. It's really fun to watch everything's progress everyday!

Deck Garden, Pt. 1

First off, thanks to everyone who took my poll and helped point me in the right direction for my blog. The majority of votes went to seeing more tutorials/tips on my blog, and more personal posts from my life. Crap. haha, I will have to think hard about what kind of tutorials I can offer, since I don't feel like I'm particularly qualified in anything to be teaching it. But we'll see!
As for more stuff from my very exciting life, well, this week Mike and I started our long awaited deck garden so you can read on about that....

We have a small, second floor apartment with a small, dilapidated deck. The (lead) paint is peely and the weight limit is, well, we've never really tested the weight limit, but it's not the sturdiest piece of engineering out there. Anyway, with no yard we really wanted to have the next best thing to a garden.

Roland inspects our purchases while BabyCat looks on from the screen window

We went to the local garden center and bought a bunch of plants. I LOVE flowers and plants, unfortunately, they rarely reciprocate my feelings and die shortly after coming into my possession. But this time it's going to be different. I picked out perennials that aren't really supposed to be grown in pots, but I'm determined to make it work. Wildflowers are my favorites, so I got a beautiful Phlox plant, Echinacea, Lavender (!!!), and Bachelor's Buttons. The store was sadly out of Forget-Me-Nots, one of my favorites. I also got Rosemary, Thyme, and Sage and started an herb planter. Smells heavenly!

My flowers

Mike, for reasons I still can't fully comprehend, seems to have more of the green thumb between us. He's in charge of growing us a bunch of vegetables including, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and kale. He pretty much potted everything.

Husbands are really handy to have around

Mike wrestles with the Topsy-Turvy while I continue to cultivate my paleness, have messy hair, and blow bubblegum. Hey, someone has to do it

Roland keeps an eye out on the weather. Hey guys, GUYS, a storm is coming!

The weather kept changing every few minutes, and we had to take a break while some rain blew in. Mike took this opportunity to go buy more much-needed dirt at the store. I continued to not get wet and dirty inside.
This is what our deck looks like with all our plants now:


We got some tables at Ikea the other day (so cheap in the remainder section!) and we're going to use those to create some more space. I also grabbed some Morning Glory seeds at the grocery store and we're going to plant those in a box and hopefully they will grow around the rails!
So we'll see how everything does in pots. I'll take more pictures as things grow, we re-pot, and hopefully yield veggies and more flowers!