Family Projects

I bought Winnie a pair of slippers. She doesn't love them, but guess who does.

All of my seed catalogues started to arrive last month and I got a real case of Spring Fever. Winnie loves anything that involves scissors and glue, so we planted a garden. Winnie named it the "E" garden--and no, I don't know what that's supposed to mean, either. I'm not sure this garden is doing anything to make me more satisfied with my 120 square foot yard, or the contents of my refrigerator where it currently resides.

We got a second set of Duplos for Christmas and Winnie has started to want to build things other than plain stacks of Legos. Matt is always assigned to build the animals that Winnie sees on the sides of the bucket. I was busy trying to get everyone looking at the camera in this shot, and didn't notice that you can't really tell what they built, but it's a dragon.

The Kitchen Window View

The first two years I lived in our house, our tiny backyard was basically a cracked concrete patio and gravel. In 2005 I tore out the concrete (or rather, Matt tore out the concrete and I married him as payment). In 2006 we had a beautiful patch of dirt while I saved up. In 2007 we put down lovely stone pavers (I love them so much I might take them when we move) and planted a few things. In 2008 I finished planting and this year I'm just enjoying it all.

Here's the view from my kitchen window. I took the pictures through the screen, so they look a little wonky.

I love the mirror on my back fence. It's always dirty, but somehow, outside, it looks like it was meant to be dirty. The vine on the back fence is a concord grape planted right after moving in. We got our first crop last year--just enough to eat a few and make a batch of grape jam.

We've had dinner on our little table quite a few times this year.

Here's the view of my kitchen window from the back fence.

Ignore my pokey little pole bean frames. I was too impatient to make them look good.

The kitchen faces south, so the back yard gets baked by the sun. In fact, my thermometer always reads 5-10 degrees warmer than the National Weather Service weather station just a couple of miles away. In past years, I've planted gorgeous window boxes, only to have them die in the hottest days of July/August. This year, I decided that rather trying the impossible again, I'd just plant Moss Roses. They aren't my first choice for the window box, but I love their bright colors and they'll look a lot better than dead plants in a few months. I planted a living wreath with moss roses as well. It will be ready to hang-up this weekend. Yea!

Here we have my espaliered apple tree. Okay, it's not exactly cooperating, as it keeps insisting on growing new branches in places I don't want them. I didn't do enough homework on espaliers before I started this one, but I think it still looks lovely. Next year we should get some apples, too.

I just realized that I didn't even take a picture of my favorite part of the yard! Behind the shed we have a glider. This glider, actually. And boy am I glad we bought it last year because it's more than twice as much this year. Even so, it was a pretty expensive piece of the yard. Expensive, but what's the point of a yard if there's no reason to be in it? The glider fits into the space like a glove and it's a great little nook to curl up in.

Grapes, grapes and more grapes

When I first moved into our house, 5 years ago, I planted grapes along our privacy fence. Last year was the first year I got any fruit off the vines and what I thought was a seedless, red, table grape called Canadice, turned out to be Concord grapes with seeds. Concord are not the grapes you usually buy in the store to eat fresh, but they are the flavor of most grape juice and jelly. Unfortunately, I dislike the flavor of grape juice and jelly! (Blame it on my mom who didn't like it either and never fed those foods to us because she couldn't even stand the smell.) So, this year I'm faced with a bumper crop of quickly ripening Concords, and very few ideas about what to do with them. I just discovered a recipe for grape pie that I think I'm going to try. Anybody else have any suggestions?

Update: As I started looking at recipes, I realized I was going to need a food mill to do just about anything with these grapes that didn't include the seeds. I bought this one from Drugstore.com. I love Internet shopping! I paid for it by cashing in a $40.00 Discover cash back reward, finding a $5.00 off coupon code, getting free shipping from Drugstore.com, linking to it through my Ebates account for 6% cash back and using my Discover card for their usual cash back. Once I made $11.00 buying Matt's b-day present online this way!

Grandma

My Grandma passed away while we were home over the 4th of July. She was 94 and she'd been by herself since my grandpa died 3 years ago. It was getting harder and harder for her to be independent and she'd been lonely since Grandpa died so her death was bitter-sweet.

Grandma loved to garden and always had a very large, amazing, flower garden. Growing up, I spent hours with Grandma every day while she worked in her garden. I was supposed to be helping, but I think all I really did was talk and pick the flowers. I got to make the casket spray and the easel sprays for Grandma's funeral with flowers from her garden and flowers that Grandma always grew--pink roses, purple and blue delphium, purple iris, white stocks. . .

(Ignore the background--I was in Grandma's basement canning kitchen).

The flowers looked like Grandma to me, so I was happy with the way they turned out.

Spring in the Garden