Monday Tidbits

This weekend was full but good. On Friday, the kids cleaned (I supervised and cleaned the pantry/laundry room some more) the living room, kitchen, and bathroom in participation of having a little party for on of the Boy's Debate team members (I have written about her before) who was turning sixteen and hadn't ever had a party. She ended up coming over by herself on Saturday, and we ate fruit and chips, and gifted her with a ginormous chocolate cake, and a promise of a "real" party next year. And boy, did my living room just shine, it was so clean! Loved that I didn't have to do it, but wish it would get done with less constant supervision (Notice I didn't say "nagging".)

Early Saturday morning, the Dude and I headed for our local nursery, and got some more tomato plants, for a grand total of 38 plants this year. Less than we have had in the past, but they are in a smaller bed, and it is just crammed full! I also bought 2 peppers (which still have to go in the ground), two kinds of lettuces, bok choy, and some chard and kale starts. Those are all in the big bed now. All I have left is to plant some seeds: carrots, beets, radishes, and beans. Our friend from the debate team helped plant and did some weed-wacking with us. This most definitely is a young person I enjoy and would love to have hang around with me this summer.

I got a little bit of art done this weekend. Still plugging away at the lessons in the two online classes I am in. One of them has ended, the last lesson is delivered today on the other one. I still have four weeks to get stuff done for both of these classes before the yahoo groups are finished. I am making headway, but need to really push myself if I am to get the work done this month. Whose big idea was it for me to take these classes during a month when I was going to be traveling?!

Sunday I woke with a big headache that just got bigger and bigger as the day went on. I did do some studio work through it, but not as much as I would have liked. I didn't get over to see Gramma, either, which saddened me, but I will try to fit an extra visit in this week. I ended up sleeping much of the day, which was the right thing to do, as I awoke this morning feeling wiped, but not as headachey.

Today we have our art playdate, and are hopefully finishing up our fabric journals. After this, the girls want to start on sewing doll quilts, and doing some clay work for the summer. That should be fun! This has been a nice, low-key way to spend some time with three of my fave teen girls, and still do a bit of teaching.

TTFN,
LB

Tidbits: Gardens, art, laundry, and support

Howdy folks! I am here, keeping myself so busy I have little time for blogging. I miss blogging, but I am getting stuff done in my life, and that is worth it.

Mr. B. came over on Friday and tilled both my big garden beds. The Dude bought me 20 bags of steer doo, which I need to get into the bigger of the two beds this week. Once that is done, I will need to plant it. We went to the glorious garden party on Saturday. As a result, I have 24 tomato plants in the ground, but I still need to buy about that many more to have enough to can and donate. I have several squash and cuke plants to still get in before this weekend.

On the art front, I spent all last week working down in the studio, getting it organized and cleaned up. I am currently enrolled in two online mixed media surface courses, so I got started on the first lessons in each of those. I don't have anything finished to take photos of yet, but I am planning on working daily, so hopefully will have photos soon.

I am officially on laundry strike: I am only doing the household laundry (kitchen and bath towels and our bed linens), and the Dude's and my clothes. It is still a lot of laundry, but I am making headway. Not worrying at all about the kids' laundry is very freeing.

My oldest sister lost her mama (we share our father, but not our moms) on Sunday morning, and is doing about as well as you would expect, and needs some lovin', so I will be leaving Friday morning to drive down to the Oregon Coast (my birthplace, and one of my fave places in the whole world) and spend the weekend with her. I may go down again next weekend for the memorial if she needs me to. I plan on taking art supplies, but will do whatever she needs me to do.

That is it for now. I am headed to the laundryroom to put another load in, will fold a bit, and then down to the studio for a bit.
T.T.F.N.
LB

Tidbits: Self-pitty in the past and garden time.

Howdy! I am here, and done feeling sorry for myself. That is pretty much how I spent the whole day yesterday, and it felt so wasted, and I felt very isolated. Enough of that!

Today, we are schooling, and working on clearing the garden beds. I also have some bills to pay.

Our dear friend Mr. B. is going to bring his tiller over on Friday and help till my garden, so we must get it ready! The kids are already outside, so I must get out there. PG has her baby chickens out- I will try to find my camera (I *THINK* I brought it home from Dy's, but cannot find it anywhere!) and take some photos of them and the new coop- they have really grown!

That is it for now- I will post more later, just wanted you to know I am here and done with yesterday's pity party.
Hugs,
LB

Bye-Bye Birch Tree

During our first winter in the farmhouse, a severe storm took down several branches from the big birch tree just behind the house, near my blueberry and herb beds. Papa Dude topped it, knowing that it would probably have to come down soon, but we both love birches so much we tried to save it. Well, my little pear tree, which is behind the birch, and had produced a bumper crop of pears our first year here, has done very badly the last two years, producing a total of 3 pears in that time. So we decided to take the birch down. Here is the Dude, taking off all the big branches before cutting the trunks. (As usual, feel free to click on the photos to enlarge.)
Here is what was left when he finished. He is planning on building a table-top on top of the birch stumps, and enlarging the little deck. The bridge, on the right in the photo, is broken (a branch landed on it, and it was breaking up anyhow) will be removed. The white tripod is where my grapes are planted. I am hoping they do better with more sun this year. To the left of the little deck is my blueberry bed. No blueberry bushes were harmed in the dropping of the tree, but my clothesline is toast. I do hope the blueberries do well this year. I am going to have to fence in my entire garden area this spring so the darn chickens don't eat my sprouts- if they eat my blueberry flowers this year, they will end up as Sunday dinner! (Probably not, but it really made me mad when they did this last year- you know how I love my blueberries!)
Here is a view from as close to the back door as I could get. You have a better view of the stumps, and the broken bridge. So the deck will come around where the bridge is now. See that apple tree directly behind the stumps, down in the chicken yard? It is very tall, very old, and the few apples it produces are not very good. We are trying to decide if it will come down, or if it will be pruned severely and turned into a treehouse tree.
Here is my sweet baby pear tree. It is just starting to bud, and looks so pretty. I am really hoping that sacrificing the birch will have been worth it, and that it will be covered in big green pears this summer. That is the neighbor's garage behind it.
This is my herb garden. It needs a lot of work. This is basically a "before" photo for you- I plan on building some raised beds, and putting in some raspberry canes behind the pear tree there. And yes, that big pile of brush from the one day I weeded the herb bed is still there.
We would like to get another birch, and find a good place for it, but for now, we are content with having an extra bit of sun here. Wish my pear tree luck.
LB

Update: tournaments, trees down, and spring fever win out over screen time.

Well, here we are- another week gone by with no blogging. I have to say, I don't even have any excuses this time. So what did I do last week? Piano Girl had her first piano competition, the Simon Fiset, last weekend. She didn't place, but enjoyed the experience, and learned a great deal. She is working up a description of her experience to post. I also was very sick last Friday- I won't go into details, but it was thyroid-related. I did a tiny bit of gardening, and some garden planning. I chopped and stacked wood till the cows came home, and supported the Dude while he chopped down the birch tree and our oldest plum tree. I have been cleaning the house, and doing more decluttering, slowly. We got some schooling in last week, too, but not as much as I would have liked. I have even been sleeping. That's been nice.

My break from the internet (I am really fighting an addiction, here folks. Sigh.) made for boring blogging, but it was nice to be a part of the world and get away from the screen to breathe fresh air, and engage in hard labor, and wear freshly-laundered pants and sweaters.


Our up and coming rest of the week: The kids don't get to go to Youth Group tonight, as the Boy has a band concert. Piano lessons all day Thursday, and then I have a Mom's Night Out Thursday night. Looking forward to that. The Boy has his National Qualifiers on Sat. It looks like I will end up driving, and being there all day, even though the Boy's events aren't until the afternoon. I seem to have become a speech-team-mom-lady. I do love the Coach, and this fine bunch of kids. ( I am finding that winter is extremely busy to keep up with all the kids events in the winter. Speech and piano competitions both happen during Feb and March.) My birthday is Sunday. Not sure what plans are for that day. I think it might rain. We shall see. A visit to Gramma at the very least.

I haven't been doing any art- I go and sit down there, but nothing is happening right now. I feel a bit pressured to create, and feel the "blockage" of all the creative ideas floating in my head, but not coming out of my hands. There are so many areas of my life I am trying to pull together right now, all the juggling of dirty floors, and dirty clothes, dirty dishes, food to cook, gardens to plan, kids to teach, etc. It is so easy for me to jump into the "I'm overwhelmed" story, and to just get locked up. Winter is not a great time of year for me.

I have been experiencing a bit of Spring Fever lately. The kids played outside a great deal last week- I felt bad that we weren't schooling, but they had such a great time running, playing, using their imagination- up in the treehouse, out in the back yard........ You know- these are teens I am talking about, still actively playing. How cool is that? Gotta make time for that.

I do have some photos to post, but gotta get going right now. Kids are still sleeping, sigh. They'd sleep till noon if'n I didn't wake them.
LB

Tidbits: Garden planning and mail

Can anyone recommend seed and/or old rose catalogs to me? The Dude and I want to drool over catalogs, plan new garden beds, and make actual garden plans this year. Maybe if we do it this way, I will actually get all the beds I have planted this year, in addition to creating a couple of new beds.

Today was a fabulous mail day. I received three fun packages. My camera battery is charging now, so hopefully some photos soon.

That is all for now, but at least I posted again before a week went by!
LB

Pictures of the Day: Garden Bounty for Gramma

This photo came out fuzzy, but I am posting it anyway. This is my largest bowl, holding green cukes, green zucchini, yellow crooknecks, patty pans, and one round lemon cuke. It is like this every week in the garden- enough to share with my mom, and to make quiches , zuchini bread, and quick dinner pickles. Love it .Here is my mom's fave way to eat the cukes- I simply slice them, add a touch of salt and fresh ground pepper, and sprinkle them with a little balsamic. She ate them all! I will peel them for her next time, but I could not believe how fast she made these disapear!

Chicken-sitting

Taking care of the Girl's chickens has been good. This is hard work! I think we will be visiting the Seattle Titlth Garden as soon as she gets back. The day PG is due home, they are having a chicken/garden fair. We will miss that, but I think it will be good for her to have her chicken interest to offset the intensity of her piano work.

Ok, so here are some pictures of the mean and nasty blueberry blossom eating chickens. Not really mean and nasty, so much as dusty, but that's okay.THis one is either Goldie, or Chicky-Boo, and no, I can't tell which one is my bird, and which one is the Girl's. They are both golden-laced Wyandottes that look the same to me. Anyway, which exact chicken it is of not the issue. The issue is that she is underneath my blueberry bushes- the bushes my family has been giving me for the last 4 years, on my birthday.

This one is Lucy. Miss K, from our nature study group named her. Lucy is a white-laced wyandotte. Look at the way she is just sitting there, like she owns the whole bed, not just this one poor, berry-less bush. Darn birds.
Now this darn bird has a story to tell! This is Ida, who is some kind of white chicken. (Yeah, Yeah, I know the Girl would know her breed.)

She was out wandering the yard on about Tuesday, and when it came time to put the chickens in, she was no where to be found. The Men took to the road, and I searched the back yard. All we came up with were feathers rom a pile two houses down the road. We thought for sure she had been carried away. I wondered how I was going to tell the Girl I lost a chicken on my watch. Anyhow, the Boy and I slept in the following morning, so I didn't get out to the chickens till about 10 am. Who is waiting at the gate, but Ida. I picked her up, and it looks like she is just missing one row of feathers right down her breast bone- no blood, no teethmarks. Whew! Boy did I luck out- now I have a cool story to tell the GIrl, rather than an admission of guilt from the chicken-sitter. And again, I say, "Whew!".

TTFN,

LB

Feeling Much Better Now, and Some Homeschool Talk

Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the well-wishes yesterday. They help!

The headache really peaked about 4 pm yesterday, but I didn't let it stop me. We headed over to my Mom's, so the kids could spend the evening with Gramma and their cousins while I went to my Classical Ed. meeting. I got home around 10:30, and thought my head was going to explode. There *used* to be a bottle of hydrocodone in my Mom's medicine cupboard, so I didn't bring mine last night, and the bottle was *GONE*! My little sister loves the stuff even more than I do, so I will be having a talk with her soon about sharing. ;-)
Update: My sister says she is innocent, so that means the Blind Mama must have put it somewhere. What a good waste of head-helping drugs!

So I lay on the couch, my head throbbing, watching the interesting pictures in my eyelids and trying not to barf; listening to Piano Girl breathing deep in her sleep, and finally got to sleep around 3 am, only to be woken up by my Mom coming in to turn the heat on (It's June for heaven's sake!). Fell asleep again about 3:30, and then woke again to Mom turning the heat off. Sigh. After about 2 hours of sleep for me, we all got up at 7 am and walked the Boy Cousins to school. The head feels a bit better, back to the manageable headache stage, but I am plum tuckered out.

Mom's Dr. appt. went well. I so love her Dr. He handles her crabbiness so well, and doesn't take offense. He is one of the few people I know who can make jokes about her (lack of) humour to her without her becoming offended. I had to advocate for her a bit with the ladies behind the front desk- I didn't go into the blood lab with her last week (you can bet I will from now on, regardless of her insistence that she is fine alone), and they had her sign a paper without reading it to her. Wasn't a big deal, but they made it one, focusing on which form she had filled out instead of just getting that I wanted the words "Blind lady-tell her what she is signing." written across the top of her charts. We finally got it straightened out, and I think it is good practice for me to be an advocate for her without making anyone wrong.

The good news is that her cholesterol is down quite a bit. It was so high in January, I was constantly worried about heart attacks or strokes. Dr. says it is still high, and wants me to focus on buying/making her healthy foods. If it is not even lower in 4 months, he is going to increase her Lipitor script. She hasn't been experiencing side effects, but gets crabby just having to take it, so she may be willing to work with me a bit more on the diet/food end of things. Her thyroid levels are also in range for the first time in 6 months, so that is good too! I guess the last 6 months of forcing her to get into the routine of taking her pills daily has paid off a bit.

Back to last night:
Even though my head was exploding, I really enjoyed the meeting. We had a guest speaker from New Albion Academy come and talk to us about keeping a classical eye open when shopping for curricula. It's funny, I think every woman in that room could have sat and listened and discussed forever, had we the time. The most intriguing discussion for me was the topic of the trivium (Grammar, logic, and rhetoric) as subjects, not developmental stages of learning (per Sayers or the WTM, for example). It was a fascinating subject, and gave me lots to think about in the ways our school has been successful in the past, and also some insight into why it isn't going so well now.

Two things I heard again last night that seem to be a recurring theme (I think the universe is trying very hard to get this message through to my cute little brain!) lately, is that "The teacher is the curriculum." and "The best teacher is an enthusiastic student." I remember getting this message when I read A Thomas Jefferson Education a few years ago as well. At that point, I promised myself I would read the same books the kids did, and teach myself latin alongside them. I held myself up to this ideal for a very short time, and I can really see where this has harmed our student/teacher relationships, and stifled much of the success and joy that used to be a part of our school. Time for me to poop or get off the pot as my Mom would say.

Anyhow, I think this talk will help me focus when attending the WHO convention next weekend. And for anyone local who reads this, and is planning on attending, I could use a ride this year!

So we are home now, and I am going to get a bunch of stuff done before I crash. If the strawberries and peppers are still alive, I will put them in pots, and it is on my chore list to tidy up the living room. The kids are going to mow the lawn, and mop up whatever that sticky stuff is. I don't want to know what they did to make it sticky, I really don't. I just want them to clean it up!

Oh, Papa Dude, if you are reading this, I want you to know how much I appreciate you and I know how hard you are working for us- sorry about last night, thanks for hanging in. We should both know better than to try to have a conversation when my head is exploding. Love you.

I plan on being in bed by 9 tonight, as we have piano lessons bright and squirrelly tomorrow morning. If the kids don't go right to sleep it won't be my problem- I have the whole bed to myself, and I am going to sleep right in the middle tonight! So only 8 hours to go till I can sleep.
TTFN,
LB

Garden update

Well, after reading about everything that KathyJo and Ernie are up to on their new farm, I started feeling bad that I haven't got my garden in yet, so I really focused on that this weekend.

We had our garden party last weekend, and came home with tons of plant starts that needed to get into the ground. Got a bunch in this weekend.

In the ground now are large and small pumpkins, green zucchini, pattypan and yellow squash, green and lemon cukes, watermelon, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, chard, and a few basil plants.

We only got in about 30 toms instead of the 45 or so we had last year. This year we are focusing on the squashes- should have tons of those! I am hoping the melons grow this year. I had only one watermelon last year- it only got as big as a softball, and never ripened.

Going into pots tomorrow are strawberries and peppers. Also need to plant the celery and cantelope starts.

Still need to get in beans, greens (lettuces and spinich), radishes, carrots, and beets. All the beds are worked up, though they need some horse doo asap.

I could have easily killed and had for supper one of the Girl's chickens. She has been getting out of the run and sleeping under my blueberry bushes. I would not mind this, but she ate all the tender little white flowers off 2 of the bushes. Now, the deal is, I haven't had to share my blueberries with anyone in my family- they all know how much I love them, and the bushes are always my birthday presents. So to have her dingbat bird eat the flowers off was just untolerable. Good thing I don't have a gun, because I just might have used it on this bird!

We have baby plums this year, and my baby fig tree has 13 figs on it!!! This is the first year it has given me fruit! I love figs as much as blueberries, so this is very exciting.

I have seen a few baby pears, but not as many as I was hoping for.

Tons to do in the garden, but thought I would give a bit of an update as to what is done.
TTFN,
LB

Catch-up post

Oh heavens, I have let 3 days slip by without keeping in touch with you!
Monday I left the kids at Gramma's and had a delightful belated birthday lunch with one of my dearest friends. She has so been there for me since I was in high school. During that time, when things were tough between my Mama and myself, she was there for me. When the kids were born, she started giving them books on every holiday, and hasn't stopped yet. Now that they are older, she takes them out for their birthdays,too. We ate a delightful lunch of quiche and salad, walked around the stores at Country Village, and all in all had a great time. There are ducks, chickens, and rabbits that roam around the shopping area, and if a certain child had not confiscated my camera from my coat pocket, I would have taken pictures for you.

But as it is, I will content myself with showing you a picture of the treasure I found while we were there. Yes, I am wearing fuzzy yellow slippers, yes, I am chunky, and yes, it is a silly pose, but it looks better than the one where I am being serious. This is much more "me", and it shows the coat off to the best effect. It has bright blue roses and bright green polka dots, made out of silk brocade, from Istanbul, and was very reasonably priced, and will be a treasure that I can wear for years to come. Finding amazing wardrobe pieces is finally happening for me! Woohoo! Also, if you click on the picture, you can see my short-short hair, and the crabapple and other new blooms in the shade bed here. This is my fave sitting place.

The Papa Dude said I could post a picture of him. Here he is, lounging on the bench he and the kids made for me a few years ago. He is watching the kids look for eggs. I chose this picture even though the Dude is slouching, because you can see our new cherry tree in front. We call this the "Sexy Bark Tree". It has this smooth, shiny, gorgeous bark that just calls out to be touched and rubbed. I love this tree, and the man who bought it and planted it for me.
This is a closeup of one of the two little dogwoods we have in the front cottage garden. Papa has called them "showy" (in the way one would refer to a lady of ill repute), but I think they are pretty.
Here are the kids, looking for eggs. I tell you, the Girl was hot, and the Boy was not. If he found one egg to every 10 she found, he was lucky! If they had been snakes, we would have been in the emergency room, praying hard! We had an abundance of eggs this week, what with our chickens, and the 30 or so we are chicken-sitting, so the kids and Gramma dyed over 4 dozen! There were tons of eggs to hide and find.
Here's one, hidden in plain sight, in the dogwood, that both kids walked by a gazillion times. I kid you not, a gazillion times.
Back to the catch-up. The kids stayed overnight at Gramma's, the Dude and I had a silly 3am argument, and got little sleep. On Tues, we had lunch with the kids's Godfather. He treated us to yummy Indian food. We had a fabulous time. When we got home yesterday evening, the Dude and I made up. (We let the kids watch a stupid movie very early in the evening while we did so. If we had had otter pops, they would have had those too!;-)
There, I posted! Now off to do some Classical Writing, and then go see Gramma.
TTFN,
LB

Sunshiny Day

It was a beautiful, warm spring day. One of those billboard thermometer thingies said it hit 77 degrees. We made the most of it and spent some time out of doors.

Got up on time, supervised chores, kids did a bit of school, got the Boy to school on time (We forgot to go yesterday, we were having so much fun with Gramma!), paid an insanely high amount of bills, ran the same bills around to be paid, did some Spring clothes shopping at Value Village (I actually found some pretty things in my size that will work for everyday, but look a bit dressier than jeans and a teeshirt.), came home and saw Papa for about 10 minutes before he left for class tonight, then took the kids to our fave fish n chips hangout, and we read and they did more school work while we waited an hour (Friday night and all) for our yummy fish, then we went for a walk (my third walk is as many days, yay for me!), came home, washed and brushed, and they are both tucked up in bed before 9:30. Cool! I am off to the tub for a bath, then off to bed with me, too.

We will not be sleeping in tomorrow, as Papa is due somewhere at 10 am. We want to get some family time in. The kids and I only saw him for about 30 minutes today, so we still haven't really connected since before he left on Tuesday. I think I will fix a nice brekky complete with sausage,eggs, and bacon, and then when Papa leaves, we will head over to Gramma's. She needs a grocery store trip, and then I am hoping we can talk her into coming down here to spend the day with us. We love it when she is here, and she is so happy once she gets down here. It is so much better than her being alone and bored, and not even knowing it was so warm and sunny outside today. She was hinting about weeding again. With her and the kids helping, we may be able to get the potato/tomato bed done. I also need to get the bed for the peas done this weekend- they need to be planted very soon.

I am hoping to spend some time in the studio this weekend as well. Now that it is tidy, I have a bunch of fibers to experiment with, some more painting to do, and some fabric triangles to cut out.

That's it for now. I hope you have a great weekend!
LB

The rest of the day

Well, this is a bit backwards, but we will start with the mural I am working on in the studio, cuz that is the way the pics got uploaded. Here is what I have done so far. The leaves on the right are still wet- they will darken up a bit and match the others a bit more when they dry. Mama and I drank some wine, listened to music, and chatted while I worked on this after supper tonight. And supper was great! Roasted beets and carrots (overwintered in the garden, and not tough at all!), bread, sheep cheese, salami, olives, and organic wine (I mixed mine with pomegranite juice.)

Here is a closeup of one of the leaves. I will be decorating all the leaves, this is the only one so far that has any special touches.

Here is another closeup, just for fun.

And now for the earlier part of the day. It was gorgeous, and we ended up outside, weeding. We got the whole root bed done. Here is the Fine Young Man, actually caught in the act of weeding. Most of the time he was chasing bugs or swinging sticks around.

While we were weeding, the Young Miss tended to her chickens. Here you see her putting fresh straw in one of the runs. I think there is a chicken or two on the far left of the pic if you enlarge it. I promise a chicken post next post!
Here is my fave pic of the day. My Mama does not like her pic taken, but actually allowed me to get this one, maybe cuz it just shows her back. Here she is in all her glory, showing that even though she is blind, she still can get all the roots of any ol' weed, any ol' day. Man do I love her. We have had such a good day. She is staying the night again tonight, which I am grateful for, ad Papa Dude is away, and I have a dentist appt. at 7 am tomorrow. She will get the kids breakfast and supervise morning chores, and then when I get back, we are attacking the big potato/tomato bed. This is the biggest bed I have, so it should be interesting to see if we actually can get the whole thing done tomorrow.

OK, that's all for gardening. Now to start working on the chicken post.
TTFN,
LB

March gardening

I have also been gardening this month. Just started this week, in fact. Last year, after the car accident, I was unable to garden much at all, so it feels so very good to be doing it now, with little or no pain.

Feel free to click on the pics to enlarge them, but if you do, you will see how messy I really am in real life, so I don't want to hear about it, ok? Look at the good stuff in the pics!

Because we only have a half-acre, we have to fit in our garden plots where we can. All of the produce- veggies, herbs, fruit trees, etc. are in the back yard. Here is a view of the plots I have been working in this week. That is the shed, where we keep the straw, tools, pots, etc. Running across the very front of the picture you can see my asparagus beds, newly weeded.On the right, you can see my freshly weeded blueberry bed. On the left, is my yet-to-be-weeded root bed. You probably can't tell, but there are still beets left in the ground from last year, as well as parsnips. I am wondering if they will still be edible. Hopefully if the rain lets up, I will get out there tomorrow and find out. Good thing about how much it has been raining here- weeding is so very easy! I can get all ten inches of the nastiest-looking dandelion roots!!


Here is a pic of a baby asparagus. Isn't it so sweet and cute? I am hoping I get lots this year. I just hope they don't keep coming up one at a time- I need a whole bucketful to make a meal!!

Here is another view of the blueberry bed. I now have 7 bushes. I want about 5 more, but don't know where they will go- 7 in this bed is pushing it. I have several varieties (some early, some large), including one called "Chandler", which I couldn't resist. Last year I had all my greens in this bed, too, but I am not sure where they will go this year. Also in this bed, are two grapes (that's what the white tri-pod is for, for the little grapes to climb up), and a renegade fennel bulb plant I need to find a real home for. Fennel is wonderful roasted.

You can see I placed straw around the bottom of the blueberry bushes. This mulching keeps the water in and the weeds down (if not completely out).

Also in this pic, you can see the platform the Papa Dude built at the base of the birch tree. It is a wonderful place to sit and listen to the chickadees that hang out in the birch, or watch the chickens (more on them later). Papa has made sure there are lots of fun little sitting places in our yard. I will try to post pics of them all.

Here is a pic of the bridge Papa made. It covers a low, perpetually wet spot in the yard. You can see the birch tree at the far left of the pic, and then if you look behind the bridge, you can see my baby pear tree. You can also see how the kids just throw the bikes behind the garage when they are done riding.
Here is a close-up of my pear tree. The first year we were here, the pears were wonderful- prolific ans sweet. 2nd year, I got one pear. Last summer we got some, but not tons like the first summer. I am hoping we get lots this year- because they can well. That is the next-door neighbor's garage behind the tree. The mess under and to the left of the pear tree is my herb garden. If you really look hard, you can see sage and rosemary, but mostly it is dandelions. I still have a ton of work to do!

Dy, here is a close-up of the buds on the pear tree. I wouldn't tell this to the whole world (oh, I guess I would), but sometimes I go out and talk to the blossoms, and encourage them to grow big and strong pears for me. I guess that isn't so wierd if you know me.

Well, that will be all for tonight- no posts for three weeks, then three in one day- go figure!

LB