u/WrathfulSquib

... if you do, they'll ambush you with the cutest boy rescued from a BYB. It's true. We had lost our last dober to cardiac cancer, and were finally ready to look at maybe getting a new dog. I made an appointment with a local rescue to look at some puppies, and they did their due diligence in looking into our pet ownership history. We've only owned Dobermans or dobermutts. When we arrived, the owner of the rescue said "I know you wanted to look at the puppies, and we'll go there, but first, I wanted you to met this boy since you've owned Dobermans. He was rescued as a puppy from a bad situation, and has been with us a year." ...and the she walked out this tall, but skinny goober. My husband was instantly sold. We saw the puppies. Apparently, puppies can't hold a candle to a poorly socialized Doberman rescue. We had a rough go of it for several months, but a year later I'm happy to say that he's a well- adjusted family dog. He won't go outside to potty if it's raining and gets very verbal if his bed isn't available. Heaven forbid he have to lay on the floor...😆 He's a perfectly normal boy now.

As the title says, this in not a recent project, but I have just found this community, and I've never really gotten to share this amongst knitters. My BIL and SIL are big Tolkien fans, so I decided to try to recreate one of Tolkien's own watercolors from The Hobbit for a Christmas gift. I did not get it done by Christmas. I turned the painting into a color chart by hand with a lightbox, and edited the chart as I went for what was easier to knit. I knit the design as a few vertical strips, and sewed them together. I knitted this with worsted weight yarn in 100% wool. It was really hard to match colors sometimes! I've since repaired it a couple times due to moth holes (they were too afraid to wash it), but I don't mind because I'm glad they're using it and not hiding it away. My SIL said she's gotten requests for me to turn the pattern into a shareable design, but there's so many stitches and i have no idea where I deviated from my original chart that I decided it was too hard. 😅

Southern Michigan. I feel fairly confidant it's not bull thistle, and it's definitely not Canadian thistle. Is it a native one? I've got Canadian Thistle everywhere so I'm kind of over invasive thistles, but this all used to be corn field.

This is an Idared on dwarf rootstock. I haven't sprayed it at all this year, but it is well pruned in an open vase style. This is it's 3rd year since planting. I noticed the yellow and brown spots you can see on the older leaves, but these never leaves are curling though seemingly unaffected by the spots. I didn't water them this week, but we got a quarter inch of rain early in the week, and a full inch in the last 24 hours. It has been quite hot, but the soul didn't dry out enough for the nearby strawberries to look sad. I have 4 apple trees. The neighboring liberty looks unaffected, but the Empire and Gala also have curling leaves.

I have a section of property I've been slowly planting with native plants. The first year I put in a bunch of prairie rose, lead plant, and new jersey tea. I've spent the last couple years slowly putting in natives around the shrubs. I'm solarizing a patch between a rose and a lead plant. I've got a lot of quack grass, and I'm happy to watch it bake to death in this heat.

Located in south-central Michigan. I've got 4 peach trees I planted bare root 2 years ago. Last year they grew like crazy, but this year it looks like I might lose all but one of them. I don't know if it's a disease, or the volatile spring temps, or because i pruned them too early. Just wondering what happened and if I can save them. I don't want to make the same mistake again if it's a preventable issue. Thanks!