Weekend Yardening and Catio update

Bear here... We had a busy weekend outside and I thought you would like to see some pictures of what we were up to:

But first, some yard shots & Bear's knowledge of plants:

Name? No clue- but the purple and yellow go together nice. (Note from Theresa: it's a purple bellflower and yellow evening primrose.)

Ornamental thistle, should look good when it blooms. Too bad we planted its prickly leaves so close to the path. (Theresa says oops...)

Wild rose bush... we planted... is it really wild? 

No idea what this is called but it has 5 different colors of flowers that bloom every year...cool.
(Note from Theresa: it's a delphinium.)

Expanding the Catio... Time for Physical Labor:

Who knew there were so many parts to a flippen chain link fence?  Time to organize and attach some of the parts to the fence posts we put in a couple weeks ago. Good thing Theresa reads the instructions...

We seemed to have let the labyrinth area get away from us, so it's also time to pull some of the weeds out. (A lot of black cap vines... you know ... the ones with THORNS. Too bad we can't let them grow so we could eat the berries.)

Did I mention the labyrinth was built by using lots of rocks? I moved them all to a pile in the center of the catio for future use.

Ever the multi-tasker, Theresa pulled and dried herbs in our solar oven while we were working on the fence. I am guessing nettle and catnip.

Now that the rocks and plants are out of the way, and we have room to move around, it's time to hang some gates. (Note: Neither one of us has hung gates or built a fence before.)

It's level(ish), it's on, it's backwards... no it isn't, we want it like that. Cool, on to the next gate.

Second gate is up and running! So is Bear, time for a nap.

Bear naps, Frost approves.

Next Day, Harvesting

Goumi berries- we eat these straight.

Red currants. Last year we made the traditional jelly. This year we tried something different...

I used the currants to make juice (top left mason jar) and currant syrup (top right mason jar), both of which can be mixed with water or seltzer to make current soda.  Theresa used the sun oven to bake currant yogurt muffins, and was grateful she didn't have to turn the oven on in the house on such a hot day (heat indexes were in the high 90s- good thing we were working in the shade).

There's our weekend.  We finished off with grilled steaks and watching the new season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Type at ya later...