Is It Time To Install Gates On Your Property? // Did You Darken Your Hair? // Recap

Hey guys how's it going welcome to this week's recap video. We had a lot go on this last week with the church, decorating project and just a whole bunch of other decorating projects it feels like, and now we can relax. I think that's true. I feel like I could mentally relax because you know when you're working on a decorating project - that's not here. That'S for somebody else, there's other people's timelines and you know you got to kind of fit in those timelines and it wasn't a hard thing to do. But it's just something you got to think about, and here it's like, if I decorate this door, does it in the end? Does it matter if I don't get to it, no I've noticed that about you that there's, like certain events that do weigh on you. It feels like and they're almost like a cloud like things that you want to do or like to do. I know like going to the Grand garden show or something it's something that you kind of it follows me all year, like you're kind of stress about it a little bit only because I have to do presentations or I've had to do presentations in the past in Front of a big group of people - and it's completely different - you know talking to you guys this way versus like up on a stage. It'S just it's miles different yeah and I do. I do think we're planning to go this next year, yeah, maybe no presentations, zero presentations. I just want to go and like meet meet you guys and those of you who are able to go and just enjoy. You know yeah anyway, that plans haven't firmed up or anything but we'll. Let you guys know when that happens, because I think they usually announce those dates like January well, because they sell out so fast yeah. I was gon na say they should announce it before Christmas. So people can buy. You know Christmas tickets. I don't know if they've done that in the past, but it sells out so quickly. It'S really too bad that the venue kind of like caps it like 700 people or 600 people. I think it makes it maybe a little bit more of an exciting thing. You know like if it if you could fit so many people. You know it wouldn't be, as you wouldn't be able to to talk with everybody or you know what I mean or yeah. Could you do like two? Why don't you talk to the team at Proven Winners and see how they feel about that? It'S an enormous undertaking. They do such a fantastic job, it's just it's a special event and I think it's kind of like Christmas. You it's such a special day of the year, because it's only one time of the year sure if you had multiple opportunities, maybe it would lose its luster. A little bit I don't know anyway, that was a complete Rabbit Trail. It'S just been a really nice, I feel like they could at least do it like multiple Seasons right well, you could do like a spring show, and a summer show, and and like the you know, August first show, which would kind of be like a summer show To do an earlier summer show, but anyway, I'm still stuck on that. I got ideas. You are for he's brimming with ideas all the time on, like a you brim with like big Ideas, yeah, I brim with what do I need to do today? Other yeah other ideas well and like I can do big decorating projects or city projects. Things like that. Those don't overwhelm me like the Pumpkin Palooza, when I was doing that that was totally manageable, um but yeah. I feel like one of them like starting new businesses and stuff. That'S what you were yeah. One of the reasons I think that was the Pumpkin Palooza was manageable, for you was because you were able to like dedicate a lot of time into it. I feel like it'd be harder now: oh, yes, with our schedule, yeah the keeping up with the garden and stuff and the kids and all of that yeah. They take them a lot of time too. Let'S jump into the videos from this past week and answer some questions, the first first, the sponsor. Oh, yes, I'm sorry the sponsor for this week's recap video. I can't even believe I forgot that is this moment: organic been working with them forever. We'Ll talk about that. In just a minute, so now we will jump into the first video from this last week, which was Winter Garden Tour. We got our first like dusting of snow when everything looks so pretty, and I just thought it would be a good. In fact I came in I'm like Aaron: we need to film a tour right now, because the snow looks pretty. We'Ve got a lot more winter interest than we have in years past. I feel like especially with the addition of all those great big Evergreens like instant winter impact, but the South Garden. I mean that whole Space is really starting. It'S starting to fill in. I'M excited for that area to see how it's going to develop yeah. So it was a good day to just go out and look at some of those things that add some interest in the winter Dixie said now that you own the new property, can you install gates to enter your property? We can. I think we should. In fact, I had a conversation, one of the things that has stopped us from doing it. Is that just the way the land works? I would have to put the little intercom system on our neighbor's property because you need to have something before your property, because if we, if we bumped it up, then we would block off our like access road around the property right, that's true so um I I Did talk to our neighbor at one time, though, and uh he he mentioned, because we we have like an elaborate security system with cameras everywhere, and he had mentioned that if we needed to go on his property to put a camera somewhere. That was fine, and so I think he actually would be fine with us. Well, it's the neighbors that we bought the pasture from that's now and oh yeah, but it is one of those things where it's a weird ass to be like. By the way, can I trench something on your property? It'S a weird thing to feed into your property yeah, but I think he'd be open to it. Probably they're really really good about everything very Greenly said. Would you plant seeds from the Golden Rain Tree eventually have a couple more grouping like that around the property I'm trying to grow see things from a Japanese maple and that's a really good idea. Japanese maples seed freely uh the Golden Rain tree seeds Big Time freely. Yeah man, I love that tree because it's got a gorgeous shape. I like the blooms, the lanterns are pretty, but they do they do make a big mess. I don't think I would actually opt to plant another one now that we have one that's big and glorious. Oh was that sounded like something hit the door yeah for a second. Maybe it was snow, falling off the roof. Sorry, anyway um I usually opt for things that are a little bit cleaner, um a little bit less maintenance. But it's it's worth it in some spots. To have those big things, even if they, if it's already there, you want to enjoy it for what it is and not complain about. You know how messy it is. I don't even care about the mess because of the structure it provides and the shade it provides. You just need to be strategic on where your messy trees to the back of the New Pasture, where it's all kind of wild, that would be a pretty place to have one pop up. Yeah I've seen people plant like fruit trees in uh like a heavily trafficked area. Oh bad idea, yeah, oh, what a terrible idea, because you're going to be like tracking, you know. I remember I worked at the cable company and somebody had. I think it was like a cherry tree right on the pathway into the home, and it's like you're, just tracking in so like we've got those booties to put on your feet to stop that, but like what a terrible idea to have a tree like that right. Before you enter the home right tracking it a bunch of red, oh your smoke, bush is gorgeous. What variety is it? The one in the back corner is just like a standard old variety of smoke bush. I think you could probably just find a tag that says smoke bush and that's what it would be. It'S not like a it's, not a winecraft black. It'S not a Grace. It'S not anything that I can tell that's different than like your old standard. It'S been there for a long time, so is it harder to get some of those old varieties of no plants? Are they pretty? You could still get that variety down at the Garden Center in the spring, but they all sell out when they I mean they're, pushing new girls like everybody, oh really, yeah. Oh, what do you mean like Growers or gardeners Growers Growers? I think I mean around here. I I don't know what zone They. Are they like a five through nine, four through nine, something like that? So maybe not growers in a tropical area, but growers in most areas, it just seems like the the bent is for everybody to grow smaller varieties of things. I think there's still there's room, for there needs to be some big things too right, but is there like when I go through your parents Garden Center? I don't seem to notice a lot of the old varieties of things because you're looking at White cans, Aaron yeah, yeah, you're, looking for white cans, which are abundant in our area, I mean Proven Winners is a very prevalent. I know in some areas. People say like I can't find very many, you know and that's why they started offering an online option um, but yeah. That makes sense you kind of just notice the things that you're familiar with, and but I think that I could Point some out to you next spring uh Rim said what do you have behind the fence at the back of the orchard? Oh, what do we not have back there? It'S very organized Paul, just went through and very like got a very tidied up, palletized item, so our raised bed mix our soil that we use our fertilizers that we use. We usually have one tissue shipments a year of those things um, so we stack them back there. We need to uh cover them, tarp them, yes, so that we have uh bricks back there lots of extra pavers um. I keep all of our implements back there. The tractor implements things like that: there's uh, like Ranch panels, t-posts things we use Out In The Cut Flower Garden that when they're not in use they go back there. It'S a catch-all. It is kind of a catch-all, but it looks very tidy at the moment. Uh, Miss Kim soprano said. Wouldn'T it be neat if you could get the other Square property? That'S next to the field. You just got that would just complete the place. I think that we will have an opportunity to buy it, because our neighbor has come to us and and said that he would let us know first, oh, I really wish we had money at the time again we had we had just bought the New Pasture up In front of us - and we were like we're tapped out like we - we can't like he, so he originally came in and offered and offered it to us to buy the piece right in front of her side Garden that big square and then also the original acre. That belonged to this house that the previous owner sold to them. He offered us that piece too, that would have connected to the back of the barn, but you know what everything seems to work when it should yeah and that's how I want it to work. I don't want to force anything to happen and honestly, like being able to purchase the New Pasture was amazing and something that I didn't know that would ever happen because that family, that the family, that has the house and had the land um they I mean the Family still lives in the house, and they you know they had some plans at one time to do some things and I just thought well they're gon na they're gon na use it that's great, but you know we'll probably never have a chance to buy it. It just worked out, so we just kind of wait till things tell the doors open and try not to force things to happen. Uh Kai said especially loving, all your conifers and Evergreens. Can you please talk about the best ways to fertilize and water, your arborvitaes to encourage them to grow as fast and large as possible, uh fast and large as possible on the arms, make sure they're well watered. They are watered yeah. They are like surface root. Sort of plants - they don't go down very deep, so in really hot dry areas. I find that well, you find Aaron has found it. Those are kind of your baby, a little bit yeah. It seems like over the years, I think also as the roots spread out. I don't think that having the emitters that go right at the root ball are really sufficient. I think that we're going to need um get rid of all that drip tubing and go with the emitters, every 18 inches and maybe have like one row on one side and one row on the back side sure to try to more coverage yeah, because I think Those roots are spreading out and they're. The ends of them are not tapping into the water like they used to so but man they they take. They need a lot of water, they do need a lot of water. We give them plant tone at least once a year if we can twice that's the best thing to do. Um the interesting thing about arborvitaes and boxwoods is that you know if you're going with the aspoma brand fertilizer, which we've been using forever, they want plantone, not Holly, tone or Evergreen, like they want plantone as the specific one. They recommend for those two particular Evergreens. Everything else can have the Holly tone and Evergreen tone just FYI. Just a little side note, I think uh Holly tone and Evergreen tone are the same. Actually are they really? I think if you look at the numbers on the bag, I think they're either. Super super close or the same, also wondering if you intend to feed your recently planted, Spruce, Pines and other large Evergreens during next year's growing season, and if so, how do you think we'll do some Holly tone on all the new Evergreens? We will do soil, acidifier for sure and yeah, probably Holly tone, at least for this next season, maybe two seasons as they're getting going. They did get a good dose of biotone, so I mean at least there's something in there to help their Roots get going. Uh Renee said it's amazing: how much the space has changed. Are you ever tempted to tuck in extra fruit trees out in the landscape? Okay, so we just kind of talked about that um. I occasionally like there'll, be kind of a random fruit. Variety. That'S a cross between, I don't know like a plum apricot or something like that or a cherry plum, and you know I don't have enough room in the orchard, because I've got that all maxed out with fruit trees. I'Ve occasionally thought: oh, wouldn't it be fun just to tuck one in but tucking a fruit tree in anywhere. That'S a commitment, because then you've got to keep it on the spray regimen, which we need to do here. Pretty quick and our Orchard I'll bring you along for that um. I lost my train of thought, yeah, so commitment spray, regimen clean up all of that stuff. You have to keep access around the tree, so it's not really like tucking it in. You have to have space around it in order to harvest if you're wanting to, because otherwise you'll tromp around and all your other things having them out in the lawn is a pain because of mowing. Unless you have more of a natural lawn, I don't know and for all those factors. I typically move on from that idea. Pretty quickly Michael said, love the tour, especially the Drone video at the end, but as a car guy and a gardener. I noticed something new in the driveway who got the new F-150. We did yeah, we just traded in our oldest uh pickup, which is the white one for a newer. It'S not brand new, it's two years old yeah, it's a 2021.! Well, I guess it's just one year old yeah and it's an F-150. It'S got a few more features which you know as I get older. You know you kind of want things to be easier, and so there are some features that uh the the step to get into the tailgate which the white truck had, and that was so awesome. So it has that step, but it also has a tailgate that you can open and close with a button instead of lifting that heavy thing up um and then for you, it was the seat settings which is super standard at this point, but our neither of our Cars had it, but you get in and it senses you and it like moves to where you want the seat to be set, and that was for you a huge well when we share Vehicles, you know the settings that you keep it on are very different than The settings that I need so when I, when I try to jump in the truck and you've been in there last, I kind of like try to jump in there and then ah yeah and fall back down because I don't fit so. It works out. Well, um yeah and we haven't eaten or had any uh thing to drink in that truck, yet give it time just a little time and we'll have that thing properly worn in all right. Let'S talk about this week's recap sponsor, which is a spomo organic and their indoor line of fertilizers. So of course, right now, when there's snow on the ground, we're not using a lot of their granulated stuff, we use a ton of biotone starter fertilizer. It targets the root system and creates a really robust plant yeah the fruit system and the plants do really well. In fact, espoma is a product I didn't even have to be introduced to it's just been part of my life. My parents have been selling it down at the Garden Center since, probably before I was born and they've been using in their Garden all the years and hopefully, you've seen tours of their Garden. It'S gorgeous. It works really well anyway, they've got a cactus. They'Ve got a violet, Orchid and indoor, I use probably the most of the indoor and the cactus for sure, um indoor, if you're going to get any of the four, this one works really well easy to measure. I use it about once a month. Maybe two weeks is probably yeah every two to four weeks. I use it about once a month. It works really well anyway. Thank you with spomo Organic for sponsoring today's video all right so moving on to the next video eye catching window boxes for Christmas. I can't remember how we titled that they are very eye-catching. I used all the Winterberry holly, I ordered all of it in two window boxes and they're bright. So underneath the balcony, it's an interesting area, the Portico, because it's shaded one it's on the east side of the house. So, even if we do get sun in the winter time, which you know like we haven't for the last few days, it's been pretty gray, but it's a small slice of sun and then it goes into the shade for the rest of the day. The glass windows and door are highly reflective and you lose stuff really easily under there and that's the only reason why I have not painted the window boxes black. I'M just afraid that if I do that it'll create a hole. You know you won't see the window box, I think it's good to give them white yeah, I mean they're. Just they show up - and I found that like when I plant the window boxes with annuals using limetime coleus bright, pink begonias things that have bright colors are the only way that you can see what's in those boxes, unless you're right up on it. So when I get ready to do Christmas stuff up there last year, I used a lot of just greens and bright red and it was such a fun classic pop that I decided to kind of build on that a little bit. So we put up wreaths, bright red berry reads, which I was little unsure of, because they're they're just so bright, I'm not usually that bold in the red department, but they look good. We did Garland around the door and lights filled up the window boxes, the pots. Next to the door put Christmas trees in the pots up front did a pot swap I mean it was quite the project when you actually think about it. I think my decorating tub is still sitting out there. Is it really, I think so it's probably got snow in it. At this point, Linda said, I love the details in the green wreaths. How about the green wreaths with red bows? I suggested that and Aaron said nope worse. Worse, don't do that. Do you recall that I think the red berries reeds are the best they really do show up? They really do and like from a distance if you're standing right up by the doors, the green Roots were beautiful, but you stand anywhere out in the garden space and all of a sudden, you can't see them anymore. So the red does show Tina said very beautiful. Where did you get those red berry reads, probably Joann's or Marshalls or TJ Maxx, or something like that? It'S usually where I pick my reads up. Janine main said: do you get all of your Garland berries and leaves from the wholesale florist? Do you ever use your own Evergreen cuttings for Garland um? I get the garlands that I've been using. I get at Home Depot, it's just like the 14.99. It'S a 15 foot Garland, I think or 16 foot Garland. I think that's a pretty good price. A dollar per foot they're a little flimsy, so in some cases I use them doubled up, like I did on this door, because it's a double door, but on our kitchen door, which you'll see maybe before this video, possibly maybe I only used a single and on A single door, it worked out just fine, it looks really pretty um the a lot of the pittosporum berries, the eucalyptus. I ordered all of those kinds of things from the wholesale florist and then I ordered the greens. Through my parents Garden Center uh, we don't have or we do now. We have large enough evidence to cut off of. But up to this point we haven't - and I probably won't cut on our brand new Evergreens, because I don't want to do anything to shock them or make them sad or any of that business. So we need to get some good sized Evergreens they're they're like a little bit special in our area. I guess Evergreens, don't you think, especially like when you get some big spruces and and uh like the Norway anyway, they don't Evergreens, don't grow. Naturally, not really. I mean Juniper's scrubby junipers, not nice junipers, they grow naturally here, but everything else you have to you know tend to a little bit more so they're they're precious. That'S the word I want yeah Joe said. Would you give me a birthday present this month? Please play a snippet of a Christmas song on your new piano and include it in a video Happy 74 years to me. I don't know you totally, should I don't get to play quite as much as I used to I mean I, I guess that's a bad excuse, but usually I'm playing with the kids till they're in bed, which is fairly late. Benjamin goes to bed fairly late, because our our whole schedule is shifted a bit. We go to bed pretty late and get up a little bit later. Um Samantha goes down at a normal time for a child, her age, I think, but you know I can't play the piano when she's napping or when somebody's asleep, not the grand piano anyway um the keyboard that we have I could plug into so there's. No, no good excuse why I don't play more, except for my time is just more taxed and I I don't know I don't know why I launched into that other than the fact that I probably won't play you're just trying to set up barriers for why yeah. I can't do this thing, I think you totally should I don't think that anybody cares if you hit some wrong notes or have to start over, I'm so much less practice than I used to be. I don't think anybody cares. I think people just want to hear you play well, maybe we'll see, don't expect it happy birthday to you anyway. Uh branca said: wouldn't it be good to plant some evergreen trees or bushes instead of concrete pots like where the trees are or where the concrete pots got moved right. That'S what I mean yeah, where I put the trees in the pots just put the trees there. Instead, um you could finding an evergreen tree that didn't there used to be some everything. It was boxwood spirals, but remember like kind of dead and mites yeah. We took them out right yeah and they were kind of misshapen like they were weirdly shaped. There was also some of those in our garden. There was a lot more um, like the Japanese style, like topiary um, where they're kind of like like balls on top of. Where was that at maybe it's yeah, I think of something else. Yeah, I don't remember, anyone was at the entrance of the um, the formal Garden, the North Garden. Oh, those were spirals, but they were like alien spirals like they were. Really. I thought they had more of like a like a Japanese garden. Look to them. Well, maybe they did they had them more disc shape, instead of like more rounded yeah boy, it's kind of hard to remember back to all of those those things I like the pots, because then, if something dies, you still have the pot there. There you go. Julia said: how about adding white berries in the pots flanking the doors that would be pretty they'd, probably get lost with the White House unless it's true, you know, unless I I love white flowers and I'd love to do. You know shade window boxes with begonias and white and very like moon garden-esque, but yeah. It'S black. Well, hey there you go everything, looks contrast, you're full of good ideas, Erin uh Cristiana said your sidewalk. I guess that's the way to say around your house is pretty dull: how about put some bricks or tiles. It would give your house so much value. Yes, it would also a wrap around porch would give it even more value cover up that sidewalk. We don't love the sidewalk, we would love to have a porch around it or brick around it or something like that, and the plan is to do a a porch and maybe even like building it out a little bit. The reason that we haven't done a porch is that um part of the plans with the architect is to potentially move the overhang, make it wider like 10 or 12 feet. Currently, I think it's like six feet out. The columns go are six feet out from the house. So if we had the columns come out 10 or 12 feet boy that'd be an undertaking to to do that. Yeah. But you know. So if you, if you put a porch in and you do it at six feet and it kind of just then it's like well now, we don't really want to extend it out, because we already spent our wad on on the porch porch we're trying to do Things in the right order and that could be hard because there's a lot of things in our house that you don't want to spend money on, but they're going to take up a ton of money to fix like the wiring. We just need to win the lottery. If that happened, we could just tackle all these projects at once, there's something special about tackling them as a little at a time I like that pace. Well, it does make things more special. You know, because then it's a journey and yeah, you know yada yada. Okay, next video is decorating a Christmas tree in the Hartley that was so fun. Oh, I just love it. I love it in there so much. In fact, I'm working on my seeds a little bit at a time organizing in there and you'll, see a video about that at some point. But I'm in there with the tree and I can smell it and I can hear the little fountain in there and I've got my coffee and it's just like what that's why I don't care about the stuff in the house like I'll, just stay in the Hartley, Who cares it's so so pretty out there um Olive said. Why are you barefoot? Because I was hot, it's warm in there and I was working and it's not that warm. Well, it wasn't yesterday, but it was that day because the sun was out when the sun comes out. It warms up fast and I like to work and bare feet and the floor is clean in there. It'S not it's Stone, but it's like better than walking around. Just barefoot outside you know, I'm not gon na step on anything weird Julie said absolutely stunning: I love the magic I'm interested in the hydrator. Is it expensive and do you dehydrate all types of fruits for your family to eat? The dehydrator is a tridona Sedona, best wow or try the best Sedona Express, try all of a sudden you're, not so confident. I think it's a try best Sedona Express it has 11 trays and the glass door which was huge to me and you can set on a timer, so it won't overdo. Do you remember how much it was like two three four hundred dollars? Four three: four hundred dollars: I can't remember good investment because you can fit so much in that dehydrator and the mostly I've just used it for apples and oranges. Basically, I mean we can eat through so many more apples if they're dried yeah, like just it's kind of crazy um but yeah, I got it on Amazon and I really like it uh JJ said the Hartley in and of itself looks gorgeous. Can you perhaps show us the windows how the windows are cleaned in summer and spring? It would be fun to watch I'll, ask Jeff if we can set a camera up on it. I don't clean him. We have Jeff clean him. Jeff is a guy who works here and I can't remember the name: Seymour window cleaning he's uh done my parents windows for lots of years and just like a couple times a year and um. You know when you've got really tall windows and windows like that. They'Ve got all the right stuff, they can do it so fast and it's absolutely worth it. It'D. Take me like three days to clean the glass in that Greenhouse we could or like. We could get the extendable pole thing and do it ourselves. You know it's it. Just depends on what kind of time you want to spend it. I mean we've talked about that yeah in the past, like prioritizing. What you know makes the most sense. Do you enjoy doing that? If so great, if you would rather work more yeah, you know we would rather work more and be able to pay somebody to do it. It'S just like balancing all of that. That was a no-brainer when we first discovered that that, like I can work another. You know a couple hours at my job and we both had access to overtime yeah. So we could make overtime, pay working at our regular job and we could hire someone to clean our house. Yeah yeah, that's a great trade anyway, but yeah he comes in and does it really quickly? We haven't like figured out any kind of a schedule. I think we're just gon na do it on an as needed basis. I think he's done it. What twice since it's been up, yeah, maybe twice. Does a beautiful job, uh Christopher said: do you have tours for your neighbors to see the beauty or do you prefer to keep it private? I typically like to keep it private for the most part, but we do have some neighbors who uh they're, like the neighbors, that we know and that know us yeah yeah they're more than welcome and they'll just text and say: hey: we have some company over. Do you mind if we walk around and look at your lights Island? You know we don't mind that at all, but for the most part we keep it pretty pretty private Dina said I received a message that I want a drawing, but I'm supposed to reply on nice gram do an ice cream. Is that right? Who knows? It'S a scam, I don't know what that is. Yeah, don't respond to anything that looks weird. We don't do anything like that. Here'S how you would know that you won. You heard it from Laura's mouth in a video yeah uh. You saw it listed in the description of a video like you saw your name listed and yeah, and that's pretty much it also. I guess the other way is like if you click on the channel that says that you won. Does it take you to our Channel or does it take you to like some other thing yeah because, like if you click on the, if you click on the channel name um, it just depends on where it takes you yeah. It takes you to the official page. I mean they can look fairly convincing because they can steal pictures of me and they can have the same name as us um. All that all that stuff, which is it can be a little bit. But if you look into it a little bit, you drill down a little bit. You can tell if it's a scam or not um. Basically, if we don't do giveaways or that sort of thing that often - and it's always in a video where we will announce well, so I'm talking with the company right now that we're going to do a video where they're going to do a giveaway and I'm actually Going to put it on them to where they do the giveaway, because we have so much issue with like spam, yeah that it's just easier to let them host the giveaway and then they'll email, the people, and that way it won't be on social media. It'Ll. Just be like it'll take place on their website yeah and then it'll give everybody else. I think everybody everyone, confidence yeah. You know instead of wondering uh Allison said you mentioned Joanne's often do you ever visit Hobby Lobby? Rarely we don't have one super close by it's. Like 45 minutes away is the near first one: they do have a lot of stuff there. It almost overwhelms me I'm so used to Joanne's and how it's laid out - and I am a definite creature of habit. Well, Joanne's is like less than five minutes away, yeah. So yeah it's really easy to get to, and that's the last question from that video I didn't even explain in that and for the tree decorations. I wanted to do all like 100 cut glass, ornaments, um and oranges, and I got it pretty close. I decided on that theme right before I started decorating the tree, and so you know I scoured every place in town, the garden center Joanne's Marshalls I went to Walmart, I went everywhere. I could think of that had ornaments. I went to True Value and looked, and I picked up anything glass related. So I think it's a thing that we'll be able to build on every year and I'm excited about it, because it's so sparkly and so beautiful and I wish you could see it just standing there, because the camera does not pick it up. In fact, I took a little video sent it to my mom because she was there helping me. I'M like this. Video doesn't pick up half of the ornaments she's like no, it doesn't actually, but it still looks pretty um so anyway, I really wish I could convey what it actually feels like to stand there and look at it to you guys. Moving on from that video, we have decorating the stage at our church for Christmas. You guys were so sweet. I always feel a little bit when it's huge decorations like that. I always feel a little bit vulnerable because I don't know how it's going to turn out exactly. That'S, not my profession like decorating on that scale. It'S just a fun thing that I enjoy doing every once in a while. I don't do every single year and I think that's why I enjoy it's like every two years. It feels like, although I do have an idea for next year already - maybe we'll tackle it next year, and the thing is sometimes, you have to plan in advance so that you can get stuff on sale after Christmas sure and like get the amount of stuff that You need at a good price, otherwise it just it gets way expensive, which, by the way, I don't think that we had a question about that. But a lot of people were asking if it was something that the church had a budget for and we just donate whatever yeah. I didn't really want to talk about. I don't want to draw attention to that. Well, I just did so there you go there. You go yeah um anyway, so I did a weary World rejoices, which the actual words of the song is the weary world. The weary World rejoices, but a looks prettier and I didn't feel like it changed the the message um and then we did the star Bethlehem. At the top. I made a manger out of a palette straw, bales blue velvet curtains. All in all, I mean fairly simple, but the words you know everything takes a while to gather up all the the stuff you need and put it all together, um. So I'm real happy with how it turned out. I had some gold stars in a package that I bought and I was going to put them all over kind of in front of the curtains and around the star, Bethlehem, but I got to looking at that ceiling the only way, I think I could have done That is, if I had a lift and the stage is in the way yeah like I don't. I don't know if this is going to work on the stage. Well, I had no ladder that would get that high. The only reason I could hang the curtains is because there's brackets already like lower, but that ceiling goes up quite a bit higher than those those curtains actually are hanging and there's nothing else to to hang things off of it's just open, except for the big air Duct sting you can't really hang stuff off that because I don't know how you would attach it one and I think they would move took a bunch of holes in it. Yeah yeah they'd love me for that um Rose said. Why? Don'T you add some lights under the straw that is Lucy placed on the floor? It didn't work on the manger, but you can still have a pretty glow coming from under the straw. That'S an idea. I really was hoping for a little bit of light down there, but it honestly looks really pretty when the the floor, the back lights, wall lights, are on underneath and we could work on lighting. I mean you could fuss with something like that forever. There'S only a finite amount of time that I have to really put it all together and my mom bless her came in at the last like two and a half hours and helped me just get through the last bit of it and she spent most of the Time cleaning I mean I packed the straw bales back out to the truck. I think I had uh six and a half or seven of them left so I'd pack, all of those back out and it makes a mess. We had tarps around them, but it's still you get straw everywhere, so she like vacuumed, cleaned the floors cleaned up after everything that I was doing um just plugged away at that. While I was working - and so I just thought if I had to do all that - I would have been here for an extra two and a half hours for all the work that she just put in. So that was how so helpful um tart Christine said um. You did an awesome job doing the Christmas stage at your church. Thank you. I wish I had the ability to create ideas like yours. How do you know the foam board would work in this project? I watched you cut those letters out and was surprised at the durability. I was too that's why I started with wood first, because I thought this font is too thin. It'S not going to work, but once I started with the wood, the wood was so heavy and cumbersome, and it was already a little bit of a chore on those small letters and when it broke the first I don't know it showed it in the video, but It broke the leg of the r when I was almost done cutting out the letter R and I was like clamping the letter down and trying to be careful, and I thought nope we're going to just try it with the foam board and see what happens. I used foam board for the windows the last time I decorated down there, the great big Gothic Arch windows, and it worked really well, but of course those were like thicker, so they held what I ended up doing, since all the letters were individual. That worked out great and then on the Rejoice, which is cursive and all kind of connected. I just did it in sections to where it wouldn't be too heavy and floppy to where they wouldn't break, and it worked out. Thankfully, love the curtains blue velvet, absolutely beautiful. By the way I love the Falco commercial. You did using the gloves and clippers for making the wreaths that's just wild, isn't it yeah, like uh yeah I'll, be searching for something I had to search? What did I have to search for? It was a name of a plant and I was searching on our channel the other day because I couldn't remember and that ad popped up really. I feel that is so weird I still haven't seen it so yeah Falco just asked um. If we could make him a commercial, I could add of some kind and I was like I think I could probably just piece together the footage from like a previous video. It was one of our videos which wasn't a commercial like when we did that they they sent out the glove for you to try and but they weren't like sponsoring that video, but it worked out really well, it did uh Jaylene said anyone else noticed the exclamation Point it's different compared to the projection Laura Trace. Yes, well by the time. I was hanging that exclamation point was that the last thing I hung, I can't it was one of the last things I saw another comment saying by the time you hung that you were probably a little weary yourself than I was. I was like get these things on the wall, because I need to move on to the next thing. I totally didn't notice it, but I told you like something was off yeah like it's making. I thought it was just supposed to be kind of like artistic. The way, well, you know, and every font is a little bit different um and then a few of you guys have pointed it out and I'm like I looked back at, I had texted your mom, a screenshot of what font I was going to be using. So she could see it, and I was like oh, that is upside down, so we actually posted a little video on Facebook and Instagram, showing you where I went up and fixed it. It looks so much better. It balanced the letter out. What was the problem was the r is so big and then the exclamation exclamation point when it ends on the skinny side. It'S like the weight was off, but you turn that around and put the thicker side up there. It helped so so much. I know actually tilted the r a little bit too. It was a little bit off and so now everything looks and I fixed the curtain in that video. At the end I had hung the second curtain and it was pulling too tight to the right and it didn't have the same kind of curve and that bugged me really badly. So I was able to fix that so now. It'S all like, I don't have to stress about it anymore, but I had to go through the whole women's dessert and I think two Services before I realized it so everybody's already seen it all all walked out. Nobody cares. I do, oh, my goodness, but you guys were so sweet about it. Everybody was like your decorations. Look so great. I love it, but I think your exclamation points upside down. You know just like a side. Note side note, so it wasn't something like that. I felt bad about. It was just a funny thing. It happens right that happens. Uh Bonnie said: where do you go to get such large panels of Styrofoam have several projects that require styrofoam, but don't know where to find it. Those are insulation panels like foam boards. You can buy them at home, deep that we got ours at Home Depot now. The first one I used was the white backed with silver way cheaper. It was like 24 or something like that for a 4x8 panel. By the time I needed to cut out the star, I had to buy the more expensive one, the purple one. I think it's a denser type of foam and those are like 46 dollars so, but they were out, they were out of the two inch thick and I was under a time constraint. So we just got the purple one uh, but the white one works fine and I feel like for 24, all those words minus the star star. I mean that was yeah good Sandy said. But are you aware the lyrics are the weary world not a word? Yes, that was a conscious choice on my part. A like the letter, a is so pretty. Well, I did a block letter. I think, but that just didn't work it just didn't like didn't, do it for you? No it didn't do it. For me, Irene said I'm an atheist, but I do appreciate good design. The midnight blue velvet curtains were an excellent choice for the night sky and The Rustic wrote tassels, complemented The Rustic palette major in Hay. Did you scrub the idea of adding additional gold stars like those in your sketch? Yes, uh, the star Bethlehem is in perfect scale over the words into the entire scene, and extra Stars aren't really missed. In my opinion, your church is going to want to keep this year's stage Decor in their storage, great job. That is a sweet comment. I love reading stuff like this. I just like, I feel like if there were more people in the world like you, Irene we'd, be like much happier yeah. You know where people can have differences, but we still love each other and still support each other. That'S just like really refreshing to me to read that so thank you all right guys, the last video for this week removing snow from Evergreens and planting Hyacinth bulbs in pots. So we got about four inches of snow and it was a heavy wet snow. It was already starting to weigh down some of our boxwood hedging and the arborvitaes, and those are really the only Evergreens I was concerned about. So we went out used a broom knocked the snow off of them and I'm glad I did because we still have a lot of that snow and the plants that the snow is on. It'S turned into icicles because it's warmed up enough to where it's melted a tiny bit, but then it's turned to ice, and so it can really cause some big damage and I know on specific plants, specifically our arborvitaes and our Sprinter boxwoods they're, just weaker plants. They don't have a really firm network of branching inside the plant, so they get a little weight and all of a sudden they weigh over and it's hard to get them to reshape. So I kind of talked through that and like sometimes it's sorry no, I was just gon na say it feels like it only really matters on on branching. That kind of just goes like straight up. Yeah. You know regular's, not the network. Well, we don't have ice storms like you know. I know. Ice storms can take out trees, yeah and stuff like that. We don't really deal with that, but we do have an issue with Arborvitae, specifically yeah and those boxwoods yeah, especially like on the back side of the curves on the west side. It weighs them down and then the circle and Versailles it weighs them all out and then it's hard to get them to rebound. So it's worth it if it doesn't look like it's going to warm up enough to melt it off if it snowed like that, I mean I don't go out every time it snows and do that it's only when I notice it's going to stick around and we're Going to get more like tonight, we're supposed to have snow from 10 to 4 a.m, 10 P.M, to 4 a.m, um, and that would just build on top of what's already there and then cause huge issues, especially if there's ice, you can't get the ice off of It right, you know, the ice is stuck there until it melts off so and then I had a hundred and 50.. I think hyacin bulbs we planted in pots put them in the cold frames of the Hartley. I'M excited about that Brian and Tammy said. I just realized that those Christmas lights all over the things that you're taking the snow off of will that have an effect on the lights it doesn't do. You have to go back through the entire property and redo the lights on those trees and bushes. No I'm like barely I'm, you know a couple of times on the boxwood hedging like around the fireplace my broom would catch one of the lights and like kind of pull it sideways. I just pick it up and put it back where I needed to go they're just draped over the top, so my broom brooming broom. What what word is it brushing yeah brushing of the snow, didn't affect the lights at all DC said. I don't know if you'll read this or not, but just a suggestion, could you wrap the arvidis with some spring string? The this probably help would help keep them together. Some People wrap theirs yeah. I think they do that like they do that on Mackinac. Do they because I, like the wind, yeah yeah the ice? I don't it's just not really. What we did is like the most. You would need to do. Yeah with an arm here. Jin said just wondering: do the small block was boxwoods around the Hartley? Need some snow removed? Are they protected by the snow, they're, so small that they're fine and they already have a more thick network of branching than sprinters? Do it's just an interesting thing and maybe the sprinters over time after cutting them, you know and hedging them up. They'Ll create more lateral branching, but just naturally they just don't have it in my experience so far, Linda said, are you concerned about snow weight on all of the new evergreen trees that you've planted? Not really I've been watching them? Have you again, you know because they cut their branches, go out, it's fine for them to go down. They'Ll lift they'll, lift back up, it's really just the stuff that is going up because then, when it, you know when your brand see myself on the camera. If you're branches like this - and it goes to this, then they might break. But if they're already, you know the amount of movement isn't that great right, Jay's holiday Wonderland said, would a leaf, blower work or would that cause wind burn with it being so cold? I think the snow was too heavy like it was. I don't know if it looked that way in the video, but it was pretty wet and pretty heavy, and I don't know that a snowblower would have actually done the job and that would have been a little bit more taxing. I think, to hold that thing. The whole time than the broom was if it was powdery snow, it probably wouldn't yeah, it probably wouldn't work, but then I wouldn't need to be out there. If it was powder, I would need to be brushing it off. Uh Jenny said: have you ever thought of putting in a little area with making a shallow ice rink? I oh, I already priced out ice skates for everybody and I would love to do that. I think I think we could have it for a month here and I think that you would need uh. You'D need something to keep the ice ice. I don't think it stays cold enough here. No, it does too, I think for January. I don't know what they do, but I know that there's like um machines or like because they have like in Caldwell they've got the ice rink but and they have it outside, but I'm pretty sure you'd have to have something that would keep it cold enough, because We warm up too much it. Wouldn'T it the water would never get thick ice, would never get I'm going to get with the Caldwell people and see what they do yeah. Well, I'm sure they invested one of those things, but it's too big of an ice rink like do you think that the whole thing has a network of cables they might have like coils or something like that underneath the whole thing. I have no idea how any of that works, something to create a little shallow pool out there and for a month out of the year it stays below freezing like jet back part of December and January. I don't know, I mean a lot of days. It warms up to like 30 3 34. - maybe this winter, we'll watch the weather really closely and see if there's a long enough period to make it worth it yeah, because I think that would be so fun and it would be a really good activity for the Kids sure to get out and move and like it'd, be fun, have friends over and do that. Nobody around here owns ice skates though so that might be a little problematic. Does your parents pool freeze over no well? No, it's 10 feet deep. It'S not going to freeze all the way down, oh enough to ice skate on the top of it probably built it. Just go, go! Do it over there uh David said: what are the benefits disadvantages to a Hartley Solarium attached to the house, opposed to a freestanding structure? Well, if it's attached to the house, so you can get to it real easy. I don't know what are the benefits and you can go out in your slippers. Yeah, you might be able to share the heating. You know if it's attached to your house, you might be able to just you know, put a vent that you know heats the thing cost down right there in the setup yeah um. Aside from that, I think it's just preference of you know having it close, and if you want the look, I mean a Hartley, you know attached to your home is going to be beautiful, no matter what not all greenhouses like the plastic one behind me. You know it's not like a beautiful structure. It'S one of my favorite. It'S really useful, I love being in there. I love being in so many of our little spots. Now it's so so fun. I did see a question. I don't know if you put it in here Erin, but somebody has said like: do you deal with condensation inside the glass because in my Greenhouse I'm dealing with that so much I hadn't even thought of it, because it's not we've not dealt with it, and I