Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

projects

Got Projects For The Fourth Of July?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                 (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

With the long weekend fast approaching, I love to plan projects I am going to get done with all that available time. What this means is I create a list of things to do I couldn’t complete in a month of time off, then with unrealistic high hopes if I manage to get one accomplished it’s a celebration. We all know life, laziness and must-see movies happen.

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Ahoy bark booty! A cache of hidden wood gold on the shoreline. 

 

So one project I will fess up to do next month is to actually get creative with at least one piece of bark I’ve collected. On the May trip to Suttle Lake for bark gathering the official orange bark bucket got filled to the brim.

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My Mom, bark gathering assistant extraordinaire, helped me fill the bark bucket in no time flat. Somehow the pieces seemed to get bigger as we went along. The brisk wind off the lake might have had something to do with that too. 

 

So then I had to dry the pieces out and buy a bigger glass container to store the bark, and before I am overrun, make something.

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My fancy new-fangled bark drying apparatus; paper and banker box lids on the patio table. Check out some of those amazing specimens. Living the dream!

 

In addition, I need to plant the fuchsia starts my Mom gave me since they now have roots. Bought special potting soil, have baby pots to plant them in, but need to actually put them in the dirt. So the project list grows.

But for now I wanted to share some of the latest official bark gathering photos so you can think about your coming projects for the Fourth of July. Got a holiday to do list?

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And this is where my special bark pieces come from girls and boys; tree logs fall into the lake, the bark gets soaked off and washes ashore and voila! Naked logs!

 

 

 

Do You Need To Be Re-Potted?

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by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

I’ve been doing a lot of projects lately. Granted, I always have projects to do, but these are the mundane drive me crazy kind of jobs. Feels great to accomplish them. Completed a rather sticky one two weeks ago.

A lucky bamboo plant a friend gave me a couple of years ago at work  was trying to eat my desk. It started out as a few short well-ordered stalks and then just kept growing. I find this amazing since I can pretty much kill cactus, but aside from the hardy African violets at home, growing a plant at the day job under fluorescent lights seemed like a challenge. Bamboo appeared to be pretty happy after all.

No, not new food, bamboo roots after finally getting them out of the small vase. Note the nifty use of my strainer to catch the rocks!
No, not new food, bamboo roots after finally getting them out of the small vase. Note the nifty use of my strainer to catch the rocks!

So when the plant grew taller than my desk shelf I had to move it out of the corner, then it began to block my hanging calendar view. Next thing I noticed it was trying to escape on its own. The roots were growing out of the vase. Root bound. Not wanting to stunt its growth, I found on the Internet how I was supposed to care for my bamboo plant. I’d been doing everything wrong. Oh well. Obviously my bamboo plant didn’t care.

Read the re-potting instructions and launching the space shuttle might be easier. So I did what I normally do, I took the advice I liked and struck out on my own. Directions said not to get a new vase more than an inch higher and 1 1/2 inches wider. Accomplished.

Airlifted bamboo home in my car, it fit perfectly in my drink cup holder if you don’t mind driving with fronds in your face. Bought new rocks at the craft store. Assembled my tools and  began to try to surgically remove the bamboo from the vase. Not budging. Okay. Rocks in there, tugging is in order. Major tugging. I may have shaved off a few roots in the meantime.

Long story shorter, planted in new vase and watered. Its been two weeks and the leaves are still green so I that’s good. Bamboo seems to like its new home where it gets light seven days a week instead of four. Now I just have to be careful it doesn’t try to eat my kitchen.

Upright and green. This was right after the major transplant, in case it croaked before I wrote this blog post. Happy plant!
Upright and green. This was right after the major transplant, in case it croaked before I wrote this blog post. Happy plant!

In fact, bamboo plant looked on while I watched the Seahawks pull out a miracle trip to the Super Bowl on Sunday. See, I had decided to sort my tax receipts during the commercials. Worked like a charm. Of course, during the Super Bowl that won’t work because the commercials are part of the show.  Alas, football will soon be  over. But there is basketball!

Do you need to be re-potted or moved or put in a different vase? A change of scenery can work wonders for bamboo plants and people. Especially if we get to pick the color of our own pretty rocks. Sunstones work for me. And diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. Turquoise. I feel another project coming on…….