Dawn dish soap to the rescue

I showed you how eaten up our cabbages were getting in this post. I was washing out 7-gallon plastic jugs that had once contained cooking oil using Dawn dishwashing detergent to cut the oil, and got to looking at those cabbages, and in total disgust, dumped the oily, Dawn-y suds on the cabbages.

Guess what? Whatever was eating them, is gone! And the cabbages are doing okay! All but 2, which seemed not able to rebound and start to make a head. So I yanked those two out and the others are doing quite well.

Kieffer has a new job. He is now a CNA at Thornton Manor Nursing Home, the same place where Britta worked for 5 years, then Barry worked too. There's another Stahl there, too, Emily, one of Kieffer's classmates (a very distant relative possibly).

New compost bins made out of wood pallets

Please take a walk around my yard with me.

Let me show you what's growing right now.

Starting with the front yard, this is a flower bed alongside the house.

Coral bells Columbine.

A big jumble of mint, chives and a mystery plant that comes up every year.

A baby sassafras tree my in-laws brought us from Pennsylvania.
Sassafras is not supposed to grow around here
but maybe this little guy is willing to make an exception.

My mesh dehydrator, hanging from a tree,
with morel mushrooms and parsley drying in the breeze.

Two little redcurrant bushes that I bought this year...

... and two bigger ones that my in-laws brought
from their land, which are cuttings off a plant
that once grew at Barry's grandmother's house

Lilacs

One of our two ponds. This one is leaking this spring
and so Barry has not been able to let the fish loose in it yet.

The 5-in-1 apple tree that was Barry's Father's Day gift last summer - going strong.
.

Walking onions from my parents' garden.

No chickens in the chicken pen now - just tomatoes.

Potato barrels.

Rhubarb.

Sugar snap peas.

Lettuce on the right and center and spinach on the left.

A whole clump of tomato volunteers, probably from one tomato that fell last fall.

And here's our new rain barrel! I found it in a ditch.

This diverter pulls water out of the center of the steam of water 
going down the rain downspout and puts it in the barrel.

The water comes out the bottom of the barrel, goes through the hose...

along the foundation of the house to the laundry room window...

through the wall into the laundry room... 

and finally into the washing machine, if I'm doing a cold water load.