things are growing

My yard is finally looking springlike! The grass is patchy green (not the grass's fault) and the flower beds are starting to fill out again - both with flowers and weeds. Last summer my weeding took a serious nosedive. I always start out the growing season with high hopes for keeping the weeds under control but it never, ever happens. Ever.

Anyways, tulips & muscari are blooming and almost the quince in the back yard. The forsythia is almost riotous as always. This year we need to seriously prune it. And the bleeding hearts are starting! The front flower bed is still new enough that I get nervous nothing will come back.

{the bleeding hearts always come up so fast}

{tiny violets that most people think are weeds but i love them!}

{astilbe, which i love so much and i have so much trouble growing)

But it seems to be doing just fine. The pasta (hosta) plants are poking up as are the lilly of the valley.  In fact a few days ago I got really excited that my asparagus was starting, but upon closer inspection it was a whole bunch of lilly of the valley that made it's way under the fence into the asparagus patch.  (so will soon be transplanted!)


And then, this morning  ----

{the first asparagus}

 the first real asparagus! so exciting. This is the 3rd or 4th season for this patch so I'm crossing my fingers for a real harvest. The peas are coming up much to Laithe's excitement. Not that Guthrie doesn't like being outside, but Laithe is my helper most often. 

This time of year I'm always so thankful for the extra sunlight and hours outside. My favorite is to get up early and work with headphones on before everyone else gets up. That hasn't happened yet this season, but I'm crossing my fingers it will soon.

full sun

On Superbowl Sunday we had a huge snowstorm. It was beautiful - that frosting kind of snow, but the rain the evening before coupled with a drastic drop in temperature caused one of our two trees out front to basically burst. Like a pipe. Which was weird. And really sad. And caused our whole house to look different. And a whole lot less private.

Then, a few weeks ago, our backyard neighbor cut his trees down, the ones that shaded a good portion of our backyard.

The guys we hired did a great job cleaning up the front, except that 1/4 of the branches and tiny stuff was frozen to the ground for about a month. The backyard guy, well, they did ok. They did leave us a bunch of firewood, which was very nice. I'm tired to death of raking small bits of wood though. I'll be curious to see how the first mow goes. We did rent a chipper to handle everything that was left. We were pretty excited, but it was short lived. That was a giant pain in the butt. I don't know if it was because a lot of it was evergreen or if it's always a giant pain.

So, basically we have a whole new yard. I don't think any of us are really thrilled with the changes, but they were so out of our control, so what can you do? So, instead of moaning I'm making plans.

This summer we'll have a crawler, a 5 year old and 8 year old and I want to focus on some areas for the range. Rather than putting in a play structure, which we've hemmed and hawed about, I'd rather install a few things that would be usable for a few years for everyone.

A small, permanent balance beam

A pull up/hanging/upside down bar

A digging area and a couple small raised beds for the kids. Especially for that one kid that likes to dig all the holes. We have the raised beds for them, but no fill dirt just yet.

The biggest thing I'd like to add to our collection, both for the backyard and for park play dates is a slackline. They've come down in price quite a bit the past couple years and I know it would be a hit for the kids - and I'd really like to try it too!


Obviously I'm hoping for some serious playtime outside for the kids - - so I can be outside too!!

WIP Wednesday - Yard and Garden Edition

                                                                               
I realized a few weeks ago I haven't posted any pictures of my garden this year.

It's possible that this is a reflection of how I'm feeling about the garden this year.

A few years ago I started a bunch of plants from seed and saved quite a bit of money. I did the same this year, but it didn't work out that well for me. First the crappy weather and then I've got some sort of plant killer. Not sure if it's a squirrel or some sort of bug, but I've lost about 60% of my plants and it's sort of heart breaking. All the corn (guthrie cried. she wanted to enter it into the county fair this year). All the broccoli - though I bought replacement starts- 6 out of 9 bell peppers. A few tomatoes. The only thing they didn't seem to care for were the carrots, lettuce, and onions. And peas. We have a lot of peas.

{volunteer sunflower - none of my on purpose ones made it}

You'll see in the photos that I have a totally respectable garden by anyone's standards - what is left is looking good, but it's not how I envisioned it. So, I'm kind of meh. I'm headed to the plant store today to see if there are any not too leggy bell pepper transplants left. And cucumbers. (update: no peppers to be had. i'm going to try one more place. no cucumbers - bought some seeds. they should be fine.) The other thing is that it's in the inbetween stages you know? The cold weather stuff is almost done (which is crazy because it's july!) and the hot weather stuff still hasn't arrived. I have probably another week before the cherry tomatoes start and another couple for any other tomatoes. And quite a long while before the melons come in. I'm hoping it stays warm enough for them to ripen this year.

{see? pretty respectable}

{lettuce shaded by peas - totally genius}

{view from the south}

The garden will get there. Who knows? I may be inundated with pounds and pounds of amazing tomatoes and it will turn things around for me. Also my kale is awesome. Kale is about the most rewarding thing to grow. Ever.

{small harvest of peas and a thinned carrot}

The front yard though, that's a different story. I'm feeling good there.

{everything on the left side of the picture is new}

When the roofers unintentionally destroyed a good portion of our front yard this winter/spring I jumped on the opportunity to get rid of some of our grass. We've got a lot of grass and a lot of shade in the front and the grass isn't all that successful. Hostas are really successful though. Among other shady things. John and I successfully split several of our existing hostas and a bleeding heart. John's mom got me a gift certificate to a nursery for my birthday and several of the plants I ordered have arrived and are doing well.

{the rocks are to help with a drainage issue. They're mildly successful. mostly I like the way they look}

It has been fun to reshape the front yard. I've been thankful for all the rain we've had - redoing the brick border was way easier in the mud and so was much of the weeding. The weeding isn't done yet- my mom has been helping and really, I don't want to lose any more soil so I'd rather have something there than nothing. I kept a brick path between our house and the neighbors'. The kids like walking on it and I think the mailman appreciates knowing where to walk. I'm going to fill in around the bricks with this ground cover that we have a ton of. And also use the same stuff to edge out the grass on the front of the hill. The less to mow and weed the better.

{i love astilbe. love it.}

I do so love that the kids are old enough to let me work in the yard for longer than 10 minutes at a time. It helps a lot with, well, with my sanity! 

happy august

Oh August.

There's that song line I love this time of year-
at the dead end of summer
with the bugs singing louder than God

The bugs are indeed louder than God. Cicadas in full throttle for the next weeks, there's nothing more quintessential midwest summer than that sound. Guthrie's noticed how a few weeks ago they were just at night- when the fireflies were still here. Now they're all the time, except the middle of the night. You can hear them with the windows closed.

And it does feel like the dead end of summer. Possibly rather the cul de sac of summer. Round and round we're going on our bikes.

We did get some rain though. Enough to crack the tomatoes. Which I don't really care about, but I was a little miffed. Does that mean I'm a true gardener?

I dug down to see if I could fine any little potatoes in our boxes, but didn't. I found myself being more and more worried about that as the night went on. Silly I know. There's nothing I can do about it. It seems like everyone else is getting tiny potatoes. We did put ours in rather late though. The internets say 85-90 days and I think we're only at 60ish. Hmm.

Keeping ourselves busy -- the kids were in the pool yesterday by 9:30. that was a bit early for me, but isn't that was summer is all about?

Enjoyed a free day at the Quad City Botanical Center. They have a really great set up there in the summer. Lots of independent play time for the kids, some independent shade sitting and knitting for mama. Good all around.

Got the sleeping bags out of the basement for camping. I've not been looking forward to that.

Basement + 3 years = bugs, small creatures, a very cozy home for who knows what. My fears were unfounded though. They didn't even smell musty. Instant fort for the kids while they air out for the next couple days - because i'm sure on some level they're musty, right?

too hot inside meant shaving cream and colored ice cubes on the back porch. Idea via Meg at Sew Liberated. they enjoyed it although Laithe is of the non-messy age right now - the dirty hands are fine until suddenly they're not. Guthrie went through it too, she is decidedly out of that phase now.

today the morning was spent at the zoo with John's mom, Ami (or however you spell the name guthrie made up for her) and another friend. tomorrow The Fair! friday fall/winter/school clothes shopping - shoes and jeans and a raincoat for Guthrie.


This time of year always makes me feel like I'm scrambling to fit everything in. To keep us out of the house because we all know the weather will indeed change and we'll be regretting we didn't spend every opportunity we could outside barefoot with the fewest clothes possible.

a pile of dirt

One of our favorite family stories is of when I was a little girl and my parents were doing some landscaping. They had a huge (to my eyes at least) pile of dirt delivered and it became the best backyard play space a kid could ask for. My trusty yellow dump truck and I spent hours and days digging.

Eventually the dirt was used for it's purpose and I was back to my regular yard.

The next gift giving holiday I asked for a pile of dirt. I didn't get it though and I was always disappointed.

***

Guthrie loves this story. Loves it.

Guess what she got me for my birthday?


A trunk full of dirt and mulch.


She is so thoughtful. We are so very lucky to have her.

managing things

We had a really nice weekend. In fact, I told my mom that I even got a little bored on Saturday night. How rare is that? I really needed to recharge, I feel like it's been non-stop for weeks on end. Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market, staying inside to escape the 90 degree sun on my sunburned arms and face, a 2(!) hour nap with Laithe in the afternoon; we turned the air conditioning on.

Sunday I woke up feeling more rested than I have in a couple weeks at least and was pleased to find that when you get rest that turns into energy. Shocking! John had to work in the afternoon so Guthrie and I, and to a very small extent Laithe, turned our attention to the house and things are tidier. Actually, by bedtime it looked like a shithole, but it only took 5 minutes after everyone had gone upstairs to make it better. Whatever. I know in my heart that the floors were mopped. I read this post the other day and it was good. I forget to celebrate the tasks I do get done, remembering only the ones that I don't.  Think about the piles of laundry and forget that no one has gone to school in dirty underwear yet! So, I'm going to practice this week reminding myself that I am in fact doing this mothering, marriage, adulthood thing, and doing it just fine thank you. Just because no one else gives me credit for the hours of work I put in doesn't mean I shouldn't. You know? That came out kind of snarky, I didn't mean it to. It was more a comment on our society as a whole not valuing women's work.

This morning at breakfast I sat and made our meal plan for the week. I've been pretty steadily doing that for a few months now. The weeks that I don't do it I can tell a huge difference. I was pleased to discover that except for a few items it'll be a pantry/freezer week. I love that. We're trying to put a sizable amount of money into savings each month as we've got some plans in the works - more on that in a few weeks - and pantry/freezer weeks mean we can turn the $150 I'd have spent on groceries over to the savings account. Sweet. Actually probably a little less than that as we have neither toilet paper nor garbage bags in the pantry. And I need to find another ace bandage for John. Our Mother's Day was a little rough - while we were working in the back yard he fell down the cement steps and sprained his ankle. I'm pretty confident that the people at the ER underestimated the amount of damage he did - although his xray was fine - as they gave him 4 days of Ibuprofen and 4 days of pain pills. I'd post a picture of his bruising and swelling, but it's kind of gross. Yesterday, when things started looking up a little bit he came down with a cold. Fun times. Poor guy.

Also my garden is looking good. Not as tall as others', but remembering that I didn't even get anything in the ground before Memorial Day last year, I should feel good about it. The neighborhood kids are excited about it, every day checking to see the growth. The oldest girl on the street was helping plant some marigolds to keep the rabbits out and they were almost dead in their little pots. She was concerned and I told her that we'd water them and then wait and see but that marigolds are hearty. She asked me what hearty meant and I said resilient, which wasn't entirely helpful, but we talked about what that meant. She thought for a few minutes and then asked "is that why they're called Miracles?"

happy monday to you!

dirty hands, dirty feet

you guys, i spent all day working in the yard and my entire. body. hurts.

in fact sitting in this chair hurts.

in fact, i'm leaving little dirt clods on the keyboard as i type this and i just spent 5 minutes washing my hands.

i need to get in the shower, but i wanted to order a pizza (see first sentence).

and now i'm blogging.

against better judgment i planted my tomato transplants. better judgment being the ground is really, really saturated with the crazy amount of rain we've had and i should let it dry out. whatever. it's never going to stop raining i've decided so i'm just going to take it while i can.

the beginning of the veggies

 and half of the strawberry roots and a fair amount of onions and a flat of annuals- i never buy annuals, but i just wanted some color this year, and some elephant ears - so excited, i hope these work for us, and umm then i trellised the peas, mulched- though not enough. put some grass patch stuff down. swept the sidewalks after john mowed.

really, out of all of that the pain inducing thing was the strawberries. we'd let the patch go last year and i didn't do my favorite lazy person's garden prep over the winter and so i had to cut a decent amount of soddy crabgrass. i can't decide if it was easier because it the ground is so wet or if it was just heavier.

 
this last picture is of Laithe's peas. He checks them most days. It's pretty cute.


the most thrilling part of the day had to be when john trimmed our juniper trees. you know those projects that you put off for years, literally, and then when you do them it takes like 10 minutes and you're sheepish that it took you so long? yeah. it was one of those. i'll be curious to see how much sunlight filters through now.

i just had a 10 minute conversation with the pizza guy about the weather and his kids and the soccer games they played this weekend. and our yards and how both of us had discovered some frost damage. i heart Iowa that way.

think i should shower before i eat? i won't be able to sit on any of the furniture while i eat if i don't.

hmm. it smells awfully good though.

happy weekend to you!